THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

On April 16, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI turned 92.

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI

April 21, 2019, EASTER SUNDAY
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

The Resurrection, from left: Duccio, 1308; Fra Angelico, 1400; Titian, 1520; El Greco, 1590s; Di Giovani, 15th-cent.

Greek Orthodox and Russian icons; extreme right, Coptic icon.
Below, left, Johann Tischbein the Elder, 1763; right, Raphael, 1502. [NB: The Tischbein painting, which is at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, illustrated Benedict XVI's Easter greeting card in 2012.

JESUS'S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD
by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI
from JESUS OF NAZARETH, Vol. 2

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“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:14-15).

With these words Saint Paul explains quite drastically what faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means for the Christian message overall: it is its very foundation. The Christian faith stands or falls with the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the dead.

If this were taken away, it would still be possible to piece together from the Christian tradition a series of interesting ideas about God and men, about man’s being and his obligations, a kind of religious world view: but the Christian faith itself would be dead.

Jesus would be a failed religious leader, who despite his failure remains great and can cause us to reflect. But he would then remain purely human, and his authority would extend only so far as his message is of interest to us.

He would no longer be a criterion; the only criterion left would be our own judgment in selecting from his heritage what strikes us as helpful. In other words, we would be alone. Our own judgment would be the highest instance.

Only if Jesus is risen has anything really new occurred that changes the world and the situation of mankind. Then he becomes the criterion on which we can rely. For then God has truly revealed himself.

To this extent, in our quest for the figure of Jesus, the Resurrection is the crucial point. Whether Jesus merely was or whether he also is – this depends on the Resurrection. In answering yes or no to this question, we are taking a stand not simply on one event among others, but on the figure of Jesus as such.

Therefore it is necessary to listen with particular attention as the New Testament bears witness to the Resurrection. Yet first we have to acknowledge that this testimony, considered from a historical point of view, is presented to us in a particularly complex form and gives rise to many questions.

What actually happened? Clearly, for the witnesses who encountered the risen Lord, it was not easy to say. They were confronted with what for them was an entirely new reality, far beyond the limits of their experience. Much as the reality of the event overwhelmed them and impelled them to bear witness, it was still utterly unlike anything they had previously known.

Saint Mark tells us that the disciples on their way down from the mountain of the Transfiguration were puzzled by the saying of Jesus that the Son of Man would “rise from the dead”. And they asked one another what “rising from the dead” could mean (9:9-10). And indeed, what does it mean? The disciples did not know, and they could find out only through encountering the reality itself.

Anyone approaching the Resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will then dismiss them as meaningless.

Rudolf Bultmann raised an objection against Resurrection faith by arguing that even if Jesus had come back from the grave, we would have to say that “a miraculous natural event such as the resuscitation of a dead man” would not help us and would be existentially irrelevant (cf. New Testament and Mythology, p. 7).

Now it must be acknowledged that if in Jesus’s Resurrection we were dealing simply with the miracle of a resuscitated corpse, it would ultimately be of no concern to us. For it would be no more important than the resuscitation of a clinically dead person through the art of doctors. For the world as such and for our human existence, nothing would have changed.

The miracle of a resuscitated corpse would indicate that Jesus’s Resurrection was equivalent to the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43 and parallel passages), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). After a more or less short period, these individuals returned to their former lives, and then at a later point they died definitively.

The New Testament testimonies leave us in no doubt that what happened in the “Resurrection of the Son of Man” was utterly different. Jesus’s Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but lies beyond it – a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence.

Therefore the Resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past, but it constitutes an “evolutionary leap” (to draw an analogy, albeit one that is easily misunderstood). In Jesus’s Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.

So Paul was absolutely right to link the resurrection of Christians and the Resurrection of Jesus inseparably together: “If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. . . . But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:16, 20).

Christ’s Resurrection is either a universal event, or it is nothing, Paul tells us. And only if we understand it as a universal event, as the opening up of a new dimension of human existence, are we on the way toward any kind of correct understanding of the New Testament Resurrection testimony.

On this basis we can understand the unique character of this New Testament testimony. Jesus has not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life – he has entered the vast breadth of God himself, and it is from there that he reveals himself to his followers.

For the disciples, too, this was something utterly unexpected, to which they were only slowly able to adjust. Jewish faith did indeed know of a resurrection of the dead at the end of time. New life was linked to the inbreaking of a new world and thus made complete sense.

If there is a new world, then there is also a new mode of life there. But a resurrection into definitive otherness in the midst of the continuing old world was not foreseen and therefore at first made no sense. So the promise of resurrection remained initially unintelligible to the disciples.

The process of coming to Resurrection faith is analogous to what we saw in the case of the Cross. Nobody had thought of a crucified Messiah. Now the “fact” was there - and it was necessary, on the basis of that fact, to take a fresh look at Scripture. We saw in the previous chapter how Scripture yielded new insights in the light of the unexpected turn of events and how the “fact” then began to make sense.

Admittedly, the new reading of Scripture could begin only after the Resurrection, because it was only through the Resurrection that Jesus was accredited as the one sent by God. Now people had to search Scripture for both Cross and Resurrection, so as to understand them in a new way and thereby come to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.

This also presupposes that for the disciples the Resurrection was just as real as the Cross. It presupposes that they were simply overwhelmed by the reality, that, after their initial hesitation and astonishment, they could no longer ignore that reality. It is truly he. He is alive; he has spoken to us; he has allowed us to touch him, even if he no longer belongs to the realm of the tangible in the normal way.

The paradox was indescribable. He was quite different, no mere resuscitated corpse, but one living anew and forever in the power of God. And yet at the same time, while no longer belonging to our world, he was truly present there, he himself.

It was an utterly unique experience, which burst open the normal boundaries of experience and yet for the disciples was quite beyond doubt. This explains the unique character of the Resurrection accounts: they speak of something paradoxical, of something that surpasses all experience and yet is utterly real and present.

But could it really be true? Can we – as men of the modern world – put our faith in such testimony? “Enlightened” thinking would say no.

For Gerd Lüdemann, for example, it seems clear that in consequence of the “revolution in the scientific image of the world . . . the traditional concepts of Jesus’s Resurrection are to be considered outdated” (quoted in Wilckens, Theologie des Neun Testaments 1/2, pp. 119-20).

But what exactly is this “scientific image of the world”? How far can it be considered normative? Hartmut Gese in his important article “Die Frage des Weltbildes”, to which I should like to draw attention, has painstakingly described the limits of this normativity.

Naturally there can be no contradiction of clear scientific data. The Resurrection accounts certainly speak of something outside our world of experience. They speak of something new, something unprecedented – a new dimension of reality that is revealed.

What already exists is not called into question. Rather we are told that there is a further dimension, beyond what was previously known. Does that contradict science? Can there really only ever be what there has always been? Can there not be something unexpected, something unimaginable, something new?

If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether? Is not creation actually waiting for this last and highest “evolutionary leap”, for the union of the finite with the infinite, for the union of man and God, for the conquest of death?

Throughout the history of the living, the origins of anything new have always been small, practically invisible, and easily overlooked. The Lord himself has told us that “heaven” in this world is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds (Matthew 13:31-32), yet contained within it are the infinite potentialities of God.

In terms of world history, Jesus’s Resurrection is improbable; it is the smallest mustard seed of history.

This reversal of proportions is one of God’s mysteries. The great – the mighty – is ultimately the small. And the tiny mustard seed is something truly great.

So it is that the Resurrection has entered the world only through certain mysterious appearances to the chosen few. And yet it was truly the new beginning for which the world was silently waiting. And for the few witnesses – precisely because they themselves could not fathom it – it was such an overwhelmingly real happening, confronting them so powerfully, that every doubt was dispelled, and they stepped forth before the world with an utterly new fearlessness in order to bear witness: Christ is truly risen.

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Always worth re-reading! For which one can say a second Alleluia besides the Easter cry of jubilation.

P.S. To mark Easter Sunday, CWR has reprinted the following excerpt about the Resurrection from Joseph Ratzinger's 1968 book INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY. It is a necessarily 'academic' approach since the book consists of lectures he gave to his theology classes in Tuebingen in 1967.

The truth of the Resurrection
'The Resurrection narratives are something other and more than disguised liturgical scenes:
they make visible the founding event on which all Christian liturgy rests'

April 21, 2019

Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from Introduction to Christianity (2nd edition) by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Ignatius Press, 1990, 2004; pp. 301-10).

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To the Christian, faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an expression of certainty that the saying that seems to be only a beautiful dream is in fact true: “Love is strong as death” (Song 8:6).

In the Old Testament this sentence comes in the middle of praises of the power of eros. But this by no means signifies that we can simply push it aside as a lyrical exaggeration. The boundless demands of eros, its apparent exaggerations and extravagance, do in reality give expression to a basic problem, indeed the basic problem of human existence, insofar as they reflect the nature and intrinsic paradox of love: love demands infinity, indestructibility; indeed, it is, so to speak, a call for infinity.

But it is also a fact that this cry of love cannot be satisfied, that it demands infinity but cannot grant it; that it claims eternity but in fact is included in the world of death, in its loneliness and its power of destruction. Only from this angle can one understand what “resurrection” means. It is the greater strength of love in face of death.

At the same time it is proof of what only immortality can create: being in the other who still stands when I have fallen apart. Man is a being who himself does not live forever but is necessarily delivered up to death. For him, since he has no continuance in himself, survival, from a purely human point of view, can only become possible through his continuing to exist in another.

The statements of Scripture about the connection between sin and death are to he understood from this angle. For it now becomes clear that man’s attempt “to be like God”, his striving for autonomy, through which he wishes to stand on his own feet alone, means his death, for he just cannot stand on his own. If man – and this is the real nature of sin – nevertheless refuses to recognize his own limits and tries to be completely self-sufficient, then precisely by adopting this attitude he delivers himself up to death.

Of course man does understand that his life alone does not endure and that he must therefore strive to exist in others, so as to remain through them and in them in the land of the living. Two ways in particular have been tried.
- First, living on in one’s own children: that is why in primitive peoples failure to marry and childlessness are regarded as the most terrible curse; they mean hopeless destruction, final death. Conversely, the largest possible number of children offers at the same time the greatest possible chance of survival, hope of immortality, and thus the most genuine blessing that man can expect.
- Another way discloses itself when man discovers that in his children he only continues to exist in a very unreal way; he wants more of himself to remain. So he takes refuge in the idea of fame, which should make him really immortal if be lives on through all ages in the memory of others.

But this second attempt of man’s to obtain immortality for himself by existing in others fails just as badly as the first: what remains is not the self but only its echo, a mere shadow.

So self-made immortality is really only a Hades, a sheol: more nonbeing than being. The inadequacy of both ways lies partly in the fact that the other person who holds my being after my death cannot carry this being itself but only its echo; and even more in the fact that even the other person to whom I have, so to speak, entrusted my continuance will not last – he, too, will perish.

This leads us to the next step. We have seen so far that man has no permanence in himself. And consequently can only continue to exist in another but that his existence in another is only shadowy and once again not final, because this other must perish, too.

If this is so, then only one could truly give lasting stability: he who is, who does not come into existence and pass away again, but abides in the midst of transience: the God of the living, who does not hold just the shadow and echo of my being, whose ideas are not just copies of reality.

I myself am his thought, which establishes me more securely, so to speak, than I am in myself; his thought is not the posthumous shadow but the original source and strength of my being. In him I can stand as more than a shadow; in him I am truly closer to myself than I should be if I just tried to stay by myself.

Before we return from here to the Resurrection, let us try to see the same thing once again from a somewhat different side. We can start again from the dictum about love and death and say: Only where someone values love more highly than life, that is, only where someone is ready to put life second to love, for the sake of love, can love be stronger and more than death. If it is to be more than death, it must first be more than mere life.

But if it could be this, not just in intention but in reality, then that would mean at the same time that the power of love had risen superior to the power of the merely biological and taken it into its service. To use Teilhard de Chardin’s terminology, where that took place, the decisive complexity or “complexification” would have occurred; bios, too, would be encompassed by and incorporated in the power of love. It would cross the boundary –death – and create unity where death divides.

If the power of love for another were so strong somewhere that it could keep alive not just his memory, the shadow of his “I”, but that person himself, then a new stage in life would have been reached.

This would mean that the realm of biological evolutions and mutations had been left behind and the leap made to a quite different plane, on which love was no longer subject to bios but made use of it. Such a final stage of “mutation” and “evolution” would itself no longer be a biological stage; it would signify the end of the sovereignty of bios, which is at the same time the sovereignty of death; it would open up the realm that the Greek Bible calls zoe, that is, definitive life, which has left behind the rule of death.

The last stage of evolution needed by the world to reach its goal would then no longer be achieved within the realm of biology but by the spirit, by freedom, by love. It would no longer be evolution but decision and gift in one.

But what has all this to do, it may be asked, with faith in the Resurrection of Jesus? Well, we previously considered the question of the possible immortality of man from two sides, which now turn out to be aspects of one and the same state of affairs.
- We said that, as man has no permanence in himself, his survival could. only be brought about by his living on in another.
- And we said, from the point of view of this “other”, that only the love that takes up the beloved in itself, into its own being, could make possible this existence in the other.

These two complementary aspects are mirrored again, so it seems to me, in the two New Testament ways of describing the Resurrection of the Lord: “Jesus has risen” and “God (the Father) has awakened Jesus.” The two formulas meet in the fact that Jesus’s total love for men, which leads him to the Cross, is perfected in totally passing beyond to the Father and therein becomes stronger than death, because in this it is at the same time total “being held” by him.

From this a further step results. We can now say that love always establishes some kind of immortality; even in its prehuman stage, it points, in the form of preservation of the species, in this direction. Indeed, this founding of immortality is not something incidental to love, not one thing that it does among others, but what really gives it its specific character.

This principle can be reversed; it then signifies that immortality always” proceeds from love, never out of the autarchy of that which is sufficient to itself. We may even be bold enough to assert that this principle, properly understood, also applies even to God as he is seen by the Christian faith.

God, too, is absolute permanence, as opposed to everything transitory, for the reason that he is the relation of three Persons to one another, their incorporation in the “for one another” of love, act-substance of the love that is absolute and therefore completely “relative”, living only “in relation to”.

As we said earlier, it is not autarchy, which knows no one but itself, that is divine; what is revolutionary about the Christian view of the world and of God, we found, as opposed to those of antiquity, is that it learns to understand the “absolute” as absolute “relatedness”, as relatio subsistens.

To return to our argument, love is the foundation of immortality, and immortality proceeds from love alone. This statement to which we have now worked our way also means that he who has love for all has established immortality for all. That is precisely the meaning of the biblical statement that his Resurrection is our life.

The – to us – curious reasoning of St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians now becomes comprehensible: if he has risen, then we have, too, for then love is stronger than death; if he has not risen, then we have not either, for then the situation is still that death has the last word, nothing else (cf. I Cor 15:16f.).

Since this is a statement of central importance, let us spell it out once again in a different way: Either love is stronger than death, or it is not. If it has become so in him, then it became so precisely as love for others. This also means, it is true, that our own love, left to itself, is not sufficient to overcome death; taken in itself it would have to remain an unanswered cry. It means that only his love, coinciding with God’s own power of life and love, can be the foundation of our immortality.Nevertheless, it still remains true that the mode of our immortality will depend on our mode of loving. We shall have to return to this in the section on the Last Judgment.

A further point emerges from this discussion. Given the foregoing considerations, it goes without saying that the life of him who has risen from the dead is not once again bios, the biological form of our mortal life within history; it is zoe, new, different, definitive life; life that has stepped beyond the mortal realm of bios and history, a realm that has here been surpassed by a greater power.

And in fact the Resurrection narratives of the New Testament allow us to see clearly that the life of the Risen One lies, not within the historical bios, but beyond and above it. It is also true, of course, that this new life begot itself in history and had to do so, because after all, it is there for history, and the Christian message is basically nothing else than the transmission of the testimony that love has managed to break through death here and thus has transformed fundamentally the situation of all of us.

Once we have realized this, it is no longer difficult to find the right kind of hermeneutics for the difficult business of expounding the biblical Resurrection narratives, that is, to acquire a clear understanding of the sense in which they must properly be understood.

Obviously we cannot attempt here a detailed discussion of the questions involved, which today present themselves in a more difficult form than ever before; especially as historical and – for the most part inadequately pondered – philosophical statements are becoming more and more inextricably intertwined, and exegesis itself quite often produces its own philosophy, which is intended to appear to the layman as a supremely refined distillation of the biblical evidence.

Many points of detail will here always remain open to discussion, but it is possible to recognize a fundamental dividing line between explanation that remains explanation and arbitrary adaptations [to contemporary ways of thinking].

First of all, it is quite clear that after his Resurrection Christ did not go back to his previous earthly life, as we are told the young man of Nain and Lazarus did. He rose again to definitive life, which is no longer governed by chemical and biological laws and therefore stands outside the possibility of death, in the eternity conferred by love. That is why the encounters with him are “appearances”; that is why he with whom people had sat at table two days earlier is not recognized by his best friends and, even when recognized, remains foreign: only where he grants vision ishe seen; only when he opens men’s eyes and makes their hearts open up can the countenance of the eternal love that conquers death become recognizable in our mortal world, and, in that love, the new, different world, the world of him who is to come.

That is also why it is so difficult, indeed absolutely impossible, for the Gospels to describe the encounter with the risen Christ; that is why they can only stammer when they speak of these meetings and seem to provide contradictory descriptions of them.

In reality they are surprisingly unanimous in the dialectic of their statements, in the simultaneity of touching and not touching, or recognizing and not recognizing, of complete identity between the crucified and the risen Christ and complete transformation.

People recognize the Lord and yet do not recognize him again; people touch him, and yet he is untouchable; he is the same and yet quite different. As we have said, the dialectic is always the same; it is only the stylistic means by which it is expressed that changes.

For example, let us examine a little more closely from this point of view the Emmaus story, which we have already touched upon briefly. At first sight it looks as if we are confronted here with a completely earthly and material notion of resurrection; as if nothing remains of the mysterious and indescribable elements to be found in the Pauline accounts. It looks as if the tendency to detailed depiction, to the concreteness of legend, supported by the apologist’s desire for something tangible, had completely won the upper hand and fetched the risen Lord right back into earthly history.

But this impression is soon contradicted by his mysterious appearance and his no less mysterious disappearance. The notion is contradicted even more by the fact that here, too, he remains unrecognizable to the accustomed eye. He cannot be firmly grasped as he could be in the time of his earthly life; he is discovered only in the realm of faith; he sets the hearts of the two travelers aflame by his interpretation of the Scriptures and by breaking bread he opens their eyes.

This is a reference to the two basic elements in early Christian worship, which consisted of the liturgy of the word (the reading and expounding of Scripture) and the eucharistic breaking of bread. In this way the evangelist makes it clear that the encounter with the risen Christ lies on a quite new plane; he tries to describe the indescribable in terms of the liturgical facts.
- He thereby provides both a theology of the Resurrection and a theology of the liturgy: one encounters the risen Christ in the word and in the sacrament; worship is the way in which he becomes touchable to us and, recognizable as the living Christ.
- And conversely, the liturgy is based on the mystery of Easter; it is to he understood as the Lord's approach to us. In it he becomes our traveling companion, sets our dull hearts aflame, and opens our sealed eyes. He still walks with us, still finds us worried and downhearted, and still has the power to make us see.

Of course, all this is only half the story; to stop at this alone would mean falsifying the evidence of the New Testament. Experience of the risen Christ is something other than a meeting with a man from within our history, and it must certainly not be traced back to conversations at table and recollections that would have finally crystallized in the idea that he still lived and went about his business. Such an interpretation reduces what happened to the purely human level and robs it of its specific quality.

The Resurrection narratives are something other and more than disguised liturgical scenes: they make visible the founding event on which all Christian liturgy rests.
- They testify to an approach that did not rise from the hearts of the disciples but came to them from outside, convinced them despite their doubts and made them certain that the Lord had truly risen.
- He who lay in the grave is no longer there; he – really he himself – lives.
- He who had been transposed into the other world of God showed himself powerful enough to make it palpably clear that he himself stood in their presence again, that in him the power of love had really proved itself stronger than the power of death.

Only by taking this just as seriously as what we said first does one remain faithful to the witness borne by the New Testament; only thus, too, is its seriousness in world history preserved.

The comfortable attempt to spare oneself the belief in the mystery of God’s mighty actions in this world and yet at the same time to have the satisfaction of remaining on the foundation of the biblical message leads nowhere; it measures up neither to the honesty of reason nor to the claims of faith.

One cannot have both the Christian faith and “religion within the bounds of pure reason”; a choice is unavoidable. He who believes will see more and more clearly, it is true, how rational it is to have faith in the love that has conquered death.

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Holy Week 2019 began with the Holy Monday fire at the Cathedrale de Notre Dame in Paris and ends with this new tragedy.



Sri Lankan security personnel keep watch following a blast at St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo.

At least 100 people were killed in explosions Easter morning, detonated in churches and hotels across Sri Lanka. Hundreds more are reportedly injured.

At 8:45 a.m., explosions were detonated during Easter Mass at churches in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and in Negombo, a city 20 miles to its north. At the same time, a bomb exploded at a service at the evangelical Zion Church in Batticaolo, on Sri Lanka’s east coast.

St. Anthony’s Shrine was the Catholic church targeted in Colombo, and St. Sebastian’s is the Catholic parish in Negombo.

Pews were shattered by the blast at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, and floors and ceilings were covered in blood. The shrine is the most well-known Church in Sri Lanka, and is designated the country’s national shrine. The first chapel on the Church property was built during Sri Lanka’s Dutch colonial period, when Catholicism was mostly forbidden on the island.

There were also explosions Sunday morning at three luxury hotels in Colombo.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, called on Sri Lankans to remain “united and strong” in the face of “cowardly attacks on our people today.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. In recent weeks, there has been concern that Sri Lankans who had been part of the Islamic State could become a threat, as they have begun returning to the country from the Middle East, according to the BBC.

The country has been plagued with periodic violence since its 26-year civil war concluded in 2009.

Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal; its population is more than 21 million. More than 70% of Sri Lankans are Buddhists, roughly 13% are Hindus, almost 10% are Muslims, and fewer than 8% are Christians. There are 1.5 million Catholics in the country, constituting the overwhelming majority of the Sri Lanka’s Christians.

In a January 2015 visit to the country, Pope Francis urged peace and reconciliation among the country’s rival factions.

“In this difficult effort to forgive and find peace, Mary is always here to encourage us, to guide us, to lead us,” the pope said Jan. 14, 2015, at the Our Lady of Madhu shrine in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district.

“Just as she forgave her son’s killers at the foot of his cross, then held his lifeless body in her hands, so now she wants to guide Sri Lankans to greater reconciliation, so that the balm of God’s pardon and mercy may bring true healing to all.”

UPDATE

Sri Lanka bombings death toll
rises to nearly 300
Officials admit they had 'prior information' of attacks



COLOMBO, April 21, 2019 - Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed they had "prior information" of an imminent attack on churches, up to 10 days before the Easter Sunday bombings which claimed the lives of almost 300 people, including foreign citizens.

Key points:
- There were eight explosions — three at church services, three at hotels, one outside a zoo south of the capital Colombo, and another on the outskirts of the city
- Police issued an intelligence report warning of possible suicide bombings 10 days prior.

The death toll from the attacks on churches and luxury hotels across Sri Lanka has risen significantly to 290, with around 500 people injured, police said on Monday.

Sri Lankans accounted for the bulk of those killed, although government officials said 32 foreigners — including British, American, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals — died in the attacks.

Sri Lankan Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardena described the bombings as a terrorist attack by religious extremists, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility. He said most of the bombings were believed to have been suicide attacks. Thirteen people have been arrested so far.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged the Government had some "prior information of the attack", though ministers were not told.

News outlet Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported it had seen documents showing that Sri Lanka's police chief Pujuth Jayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago, warning that suicide bombers planned to hit "prominent churches".

"A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ [National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka] is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo," the alert said, according to AFP.

Mr Wickremesinghe said there was not an adequate response and there needed to be an inquiry into how the information was used.

24 people have been arrested, and the defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene said the culprits were religious extremists, but no group has yet claimed responsibility. The minister urged media not to publicise names of today's attackers. He warned other extremist groups could exploit situation & create tension between communities. "Don't give extremists a voice. Don't help to make them martyrs".

He also said the Government needed to look at the international links of a local militant group. He cited a foreign intelligence service as reporting that a little-known Islamist group was planning attacks.

Local Christian groups said they faced increasing intimidation from some extremist Buddhist monks in recent years.

Last year, there were clashes between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community and minority Muslims, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam.


Inside St. Sebastian church after the bombing. The statue of the Risen Christ is blood-spattered but intact. As the Cross and Pieta at Notre Dame's main altar remained intact...

More than 50 people were killed in St Sebastian's gothic-style Catholic church in Katuwapitiya, north of the capital of Colombo, a police official told Reuters, with pictures showing bodies on the ground, blood on the pews and a destroyed roof.

Media reported 25 people were also killed in an attack on an evangelical church in Batticaloa in the country's eastern province.

The Easter Sunday attack was the worst violence to hit Sri Lanka since its civil war ended a decade ago. Police said one blast struck a hotel in Dehiwela, near Colombo, while a military spokesman confirmed another in Dematagoda on the outskirts of the capital.

Another attack targeted parishioners at St Anthony's Shrine in central Colombo, and three hotels were also hit in the city.

Eyewitnesses reported harrowing scenes from Colombo. "People were being dragged out," said Bhanuka Harischandra, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was going to the city's Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed.

"People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode. There was blood everywhere."

Mangala Karunaratne, a Colombo resident, said the community was "in disbelief". "During the 30 years of civil war we had lots of explosions in Colombo," he said. "But it's been 10 years of peace and we got used to that. So that's why it's really surprising and shocking."

Leaders from around the world condemned the attacks.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "several" Americans were killed and that "these vile attacks are a stark reminder of why the United States remains resolved in our fight to defeat terrorism".

"[Targeting] innocent people gathering in a place of worship or enjoying a holiday meal are affronts to the universal values and freedoms that we hold dear," he said.

Three Indian citizens and five Britons were killed in the blasts, and Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Theresa May offered their condolences.

Sri Lankan Catholic Church Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith described it as "a very, very sad day for all of us".

"I [would] also like to ask the Government to hold a very impartial, strong inquiry and find out who is responsible behind this act and also to punish them mercilessly because only animals can behave like that."

Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome.

"I learned with sadness and pain of the news of the grave attacks," he said in his Easter Sunday message. "I wish to express my affectionate closeness to the Christian community, hit while it was gathered in prayer, and to all the victims of such cruel violence."

On Twitter, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called the Sri Lankan terror attacks "an assault on all humanity", while Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described them as "a despicable crime".

"We are all children of God; an attack on one religion is an attack on us all," he said.

Greta and the pope in
an upside down world
When world leaders accept moral blows and sermonettes from
a 16-year-old Swedish girl with a flair for propaganda
Editorial
by Riccardo Cascioli
Translated from

April 19, 2019

It was not a private audience as many climate catastrophists had wished and expected, but the media effect wasn't any less.

The two principal global sponsors today of climate catastrophism met briefly in St. Peter's Square, long enough for the ritual photos to re-launch their common message to the world.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish girl who has been organizing Friday strikes [to protest that not enough is being done to forestall a climate catastrophe soon], took part in the pope's Wednesday general audience yesterday and was able to meet him briefly on the rope line afterwards.

Long enough for some commemorative photos of a 'milestone event' in saving the planet, with Greta holding up her poster [inviting everyone to take part in her cause by celebrating Laudato si on May 24], and of course, receiving a blessing from the pope.

"He told me to go ahead [with the initiative]", the girl said later. Which was substantially confirmed by the Vatican Press Office through interim papal spokesman Alessandro Gisotti, who said: "The Holy Father thanked and encouraged Greta Thunberg for her commitment in behalf of the environment. On her part, the young Swedish activist, who had requested a meeting wht Pope Francis, thanked him for his great commitment in favor of the care of Creation".

So, going by Gisotti's statement, the pope spoke in worldly terms (the environment), while the girl used a term from his encyclical (the care of Creation). Reverse osmosis, it seems.

Greta arrived in Rome by train from Strasbourg [seat of the European Parliament] where she delighted European parliamentarians with her lttie sermonettes on the climate, but found the time to dedicate a thought, in her own way, to the Notre Dame fire: "This will be rebuilt, but our common home is crumbling, time is pressing but nothing is happening".

[What does she know? If her reading has been limited to the self-serving jeremiads of the climate catastrophists, one expects she does not care about the numerous books and articles that have been written by authoritative scientists and commentators who not only refute the climate scare raised by the activists as over-the-top and unlikely, but have also documented all the advances made by various nations, including the most progressive ones led by the USA, in instituting various laws since the 1960s to protect the environment from the worst effects of contemporary human activity on the climate (mainly, through the necessary use of fossil fuels until alternative energy sources become feasible in enough quantities and with comparatively low cost, and through indiscriminate massive pollution of communities and water resources by industrial wastes). Morever, all climate catastrophists grossly exaggerate the effect of human activity on the climate, which even if it comtinued to be irresponsible since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring raised global awareness on environmental pollution in the 1960s, has minuscule effect compared to the cosmic effects of solar activity over which man has no control.]

In other words, to her, the Notre Dame fire was unfortunate, but let us think of a more serious cause: We must save the entire planet, not just one church. Unfortunately, she will be in Italy for a few days, Today, Maundy Thursday, to address our parliamentarians, and tomorrow, to lead a 'Fridays for future' strike. And who cares that she does it in Rome, capital of Christianity, on Good Friday, when she is likely to distract not a few persons from observing this solemnity. If the pope himself encouraged her to go on with her 'work', what can we say? [Did he know she was going to be addressing Italian parliamentarians on Maundy Thursday and leading strikes on Good Friday? And if he did, he obviously did not have second thoughts about it.] Keeping in mind, of course, that Jesus died for the redemption of all, including Ms. Thunberg.

But it is a very pathetic and even very concerning surreal situation in which men who are among the most powerful leaders in the world, politicians who hold the fate of their peoples in their hands, want to outdo each other in taking moral blows and santimonious orders from a teenager indoctrinated in the environmentalist gospel and who speaks of it like a broken record. They are adults who can no longer propose anything on their own and consider themselves like schoolchildren taking lessons from a wise and knowing adolescent. What a topsy-turvy world!

In this respect - for the moment leaving Greta to her destiny - the most concerning is that in the church of Bergoglio, there seems to be no awareness at all that what is at stake is not so much the pollution levels or global temperatures, but the very idea of man, his relationship to God and therefore to other men and the world he lives in.

The anthropological challenge is in play even on ecological issues, and it is evident ,to quote Paul VI, that non-Catholic thinking has asserted itself in the Church, a thinking that does not consider man and nature as part of God's creative design. Man is no longer considered the vertex of Creation, ontologically different from all other living creatures, but part of a 'community of living creatures' in which he is the only potential factor for disequilibrium and destruction (all other beings behave according tot heir given nature).

And here we have the clear attempt to overturn the order willed by God. This is what ought to preoccupy the leaders of the Church, not the rise and fall of global temperatures, a fluctuation that has always existed.

Obviously, human activity did not cause the great Ice Ages and their subsequent thaws during earth's long geological history, to which human beings are very late comers. This is a commonsense fact which none of the climate catastrophists seem to even consider in insisting that man can avert such climate extremes if everyone drove electric cars, stopped using airconditioning, and halted any activity that has a 'carbon footprint'.

And BTW, Jorge Bergoglio will get his ironic come-uppance if and when Greta Thunberg is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 all by herself, or even as co-winner with Jorge Bergoglio.

As I try to group together items critical of Bergoglio, here is one from Antonio Socci from Holy Saturday:

To keep talking about migrants
even in Holy Week
is to cancel out God
Translated from

April 20, 2019

During Holy Week, at least, could the topic of papal discourse have been devoted to Jesus Christ? Or was that too much to ask of the Vatican and the pope?

I do not know if oltretevere [literally, ‘beyond the Tiber’, an Italian colloquialism to refer to the Vatican, which is across the Tiber from central Rome] there are still Catholics (other than Benedict XVI and a few others), but the Church’s raison d’etre is to proclaim Christ and his Gospel, and the common folk have an infinite desire to hear men oF God who speak of Jesus, of the meaning of life, and of eternity.

To preach on the climate and the environment, we already have Greta Thunberg and her followers. There is no need for Bergoglio to do so because if he believes in hell, he ought to be warning us against the fires of hell instead of global warming.

Is it really possible that the Church has set aside the Passion of Christ who delivered himself to be slaughtered for love of us, who ‘bled himself to death for you’ as an ancient polyphonic hymn tells us, and who rose after three days, having conquered evil and death, thus opening up eternal life to mankind? How many times have you heard Bergoglio speak of the resurrection, of eternity, of Hell, purgatory and Paradise? [Well, he had to speak of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday!]

Since his wayward Latin American reign began (speaking of the environment and global warming at the Mass that inaugurated his pontificate), Jesus has become the Great Ignored [or Underplayed], while at the same time, there has been absolute silence on eternal life and the mystery of God.

Of course, Jesus is recalled now and then, but it seems only as a pretext to speak of migrants. At Christmas, this pope told us that Jesus was a migrant (which is of course, not true in any way). It almost seemed as if he was celebrating the boat people instead of the birth of Christ.

[This is one of those preposterous factoids that our erigning pope spits out as he pleases, to ‘support’ any position he takes. How can a baby born in ancient Palestine, long after the Egyptian bondage and the Babylonian captivity, be called a migrant when he descended humanly from the royal line of David with a genealogy that goes back multiple generations to Adam as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew?]

And during this Holy Week, the Passion of Christ was used as pretext to speak about migrants by Cardinal Bassetti, the Bergoglian president of the Italian bishops conference (CEI), when at the Maundy Thursday liturgy, he parroted the line that “Migrants are not a problem – they are resources”.

In the Via Crucis at the Colosseum of Rome, presided by Bergoglio, La Repubblica informs us, “the various meditations protested closed doors and lager-like accommodations for the illegals”.

It is true that the Passion of Christ encompasses all fo mankind’s sufferings, but at least on Good Friday, concentrate on him – because Bergoglio already uses the other 364 days of the year to speak of his migrants!

And if he really wishes to speak about atrocities in today’s world, why not address the suffering of persecuted Christians which the Bergoglio Vatican hates to bring up at all because the persecutors are often regimes run by his Muslim ‘brothers’, or by Communists as in China which Bergoglio wishes to gratify at any cost (he has practically turned over the Church in China to the atheist dictators of Beijing).

Or he could speak about the incessant attacks against life, starting with the lives of the unborn (counting in the millions annually around the world), but this is obviously not a politically correct issue to bring up, so the Vatican is careful not to do so unless it cannot avoid it [as when the pope has to give pro forma support to events like the March for Life].

Moreover, the migrant issue is now 'anachronistic' because today, anyone who really cares that migrants fleeing Africa run the risk of dying at sea [for being transported by the human traffickers who charge them exorbitant prices for their 'service' in boats and ships that are unseaworthy and overcrowded], should rejoice because for now, those maritime drownings involving hundreds at a time have come to an end. But the Bergoglio Vatican won’t even acknowledge this because to do would be indirect praise of the Italian minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, whom Catholic media in Italy have depicted as Satan himself.

Meanwhile, the Church in Africa considers the exodus of so many young people to Europe a crying shame. As Cardinal Robert Sarah explained:

---

“The Church cannot cooperate with this new form of slavery that mass migration has become. If the West continues in this fatal way, there is a great risk that, due to denatalization (lower birth rates), it will disappear, invaded by foreigners, just as Rome was invaded by barbarians….My country is predominantly Muslim. I think I know the reality I'm talking about...

“Like a tree, every man has his own ground, his own environment, in which he can grow best. Better to help persons realize themselves in their own cultures rather than encourage them to come to a Europe in full decadence. It is a false exegesis to use the Word of God in order to promote mass migration. God has never wanted these rifts”.

---

Cardinal Sarah, a great man of God, has explained many times that the greatest charity towards man is to give him God through the announcement of the Christian Gospel, which is the mission of the Church. But he observes that the progressivist Church has sidelined God and concerned itself only with politics as manifested in the favorite issues of the Left. In this sense, Bergoglio is in permanent electoral campaign mode.

In many Catholic publications, ‘non-negotiable principles’ do not exist, and what they propagate is progressivist politics. On Maundy Thursday, the front page of Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, featured a major advertisement for the latest book of the Jesuit priest Bartolomeo Sorge (who chanpions a revival of the 1970s) entitled
Perché il populismo fa male al popolo (Why populism is bad for the people). It is along the lines of that infamous Famiglia Cristiana cover last year which featured Salvini as Satan [for being the architect and chief executor of the new Italian government’s policy to turn away ships bearing persons intent on entering Europe illegally, i.e., without visas). [BTW, how then does Fr Sorge in his 'anti-populism' book Jorge Bergoglio's militant championing of 'world populist movements', of which he has sponsored five inernational congresses so far? Other than by making a distinction between the 'populism' of Peronist Bergoglio and his proteges like Bolivia's Evo Morales, which surely Sorge must find 'right and admirable', against the 'populism' of Matteo Salvini and the other European leaders who mean it primarily as upholding national sovereignty and identity against all comers?]

The obliteration of God from the public consciousness, of which Benedict XVI spoke most forcefully in his most recent intervention, is happening primarily through the work of the very men who, by occupation if not by mission, ought to be speaking to the world of Christ and of eternal life.

As Benedict XVI noted with sorrow: “Even we Christians and priests choose not to speak about God who has become the private business of a minority”.

And yet men who have a wrenching need to rediscover the sense in life, to find salvation, look to the Church for this – as the world looked on the Church in the past few days with the fire at Notre Dame de Paris.

There is a hunger and thirst for God but those who have the duty to respond to this hunger and thirst are poisoned by political motivations, by environmentalist and migrationist fanaticism, and [appear to] have forgotten God.

Yet nothing can reach the human heart as powerfully as the face of Christ. As the French writer George Bernanos wrote: “The day will come when men will be unable to say the name of Jesus without weeping”.

While the following is not specifically anti-Bergoglio, its general tone and message is - that Christians who care about their faith and see it whittled down daily by the spirit of the world that has pervaded even the Church hierarchy cannot afford to simply keep silent about this progressive obliteration of God from the public consciousness.

Why we cannot be silent
By MICHAEL BROWN

April 17, 2019

Go ahead. Ban me. Block me. Get out your nasty dictionary and vilify me. Call me obsessed. Hateful. Bigoted. Have at it.

The fact is, there are a million things I’d rather write about, but the state of the world leaves me no choice. To be silent is to give tacit approval. To be silent is to accept. To be silent is to capitulate. And that’s not going to happen.

A Democratic leader announces his presidential candidacy and then turns to kiss his same-sex partner. And the crowd celebrates.

Sorry, but I’m not celebrating.

A growing number of parents are devastated after their vulnerable, confused, trans-identified daughters have had their breasts removed, only to realize they are actually women. Or their sons have had their private parts altered, only to realize they are actually boys. Dare we be silent? Even health workers are raising their voices in protest.

As noted by the Kelsey Coalition, “History is replete with medical scandals. Frontal lobotomies to treat mental illness. Forced sterilization to control ‘undesirable’ populations. The infamous Tuskegee Experiment. Indefensible, unethical medical procedures were performed for years. Why did it take so long to stop them? History is repeating itself.”

[Make] no mistake about it: You can be polite, gracious, friendly, kind, and civil when discussing LGBT issues. But if you don’t affirm the LGBT agenda, you’ll be branded a hateful, bigoted, Nazi homophobe. Don’t be surprised!

Today, “young people are often prescribed risky hormonal treatments . . . . Not a single long-term study supports such risky medical interventions.” Worst of all, “Minor children may be treated surgically. Girls may have their breasts removed at age 13 and their uterus at 16. Teen boys may have their penis and testes removed shortly after their 16th birthday.”

This is social madness. How can we sit idly by?

][The author fails to note an item that made the news last month - in which most of the media reports omitted the proviso 'in very restricted cases'. But no matter: the moment any new is reported with the heading "The Vatican says..." or "The Pope says...", few media consumers will note, much less appreciate, any conditions attached to the general statement.

Consider the unfortunate sequelae to Chapter 8 of Amoris laetitia which everyone, including the pope himself, has taken to mean that remarried Catholic divorcees who are otherwise unqualified to receive Communion may do so as they please, and priests ought to have no qualms giving communion to people living in a continuing state of mortal sin.

---

Vatican News runs interview
claiming puberty blockers okay
in ‘very restricted cases’

VATICAN CITY, March 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A member of the Pontifical Academy for Life has argued on the Vatican News website that it’s acceptable to give children a puberty-blocking hormone in “very restricted cases.”

The Academy member, Laura Palazanni, said that Italy’s National Committee of Bioethics (NBC) – of which she is the vice president – had advised that the puberty blocker triptorelin should be used “only briefly” to create “a window of opportunity” for doctors to appropriately diagnose a child when he or she is at risk of self-harm, suicide, or self-medicating with puberty blockers bought over the internet.

Dr. Michelle Cretella, president of the College of American Pediatricians, told LifeSiteNews that puberty blockers should never be given to a physically healthy child.

“It is never ethically permissible to give a physically healthy child puberty blocking medication because these drugs cause objective harm,” she said via email. “Ethical and compassionate physicians do not give any child, let alone a suicidal one, medications that cause harm.”...[/dim

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Our moral framework is collapsing, and our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will pay dearly. How can I hold my tongue from speaking or restrain my pen from writing?

It is love that motivates me and moves me. Love for God. Love for America. Love for the coming generations. Love for what is best.

You can call it hate. You can brand me a Nazi. That will only encourage me to speak up all the more clearly.

On Monday, I tweeted, “[Make] no mistake about it: You can be polite, gracious, friendly, kind, and civil when discussing LGBT issues. But if you don’t affirm the LGBT agenda, you’ll be branded a hateful, bigoted, Nazi homophobe. Don’t be surprised!”

In response, a concerned mom posted: “Sad truth! Even my daughter who goes to a Christian school comes under attack for defending what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. She gets so frustrated. Cried today to me about having to defend 2 genders among a few of her friends. Jesus said we would be persecuted.”

How can I hold back after reading something like this? And note carefully: It’s happening in Christian schools. Bible-believing schools. Jesus-exalting schools. Or at least, that’s what they’re supposed to be.

Yet even here, the spirit of the world has become so pervasive that it is now controversial to affirm the Christian Scriptures in an allegedly Christian school. It’s controversial to state that there are two genders (as opposed to an endless number of genders). What on earth is coming next?

No wonder this young lady was in tears. No wonder her mother was grieved. To be unmoved by this is to be indifferent, apathetic, compromised, and complacent. God forbid that should describe you or me.

Pat Buchanan put all this in context in a recent article, noting that, “If Pete [Buttigieg] is right, since the time of Christ, Christians have ostracized and persecuted gays simply for being and behaving as God intended. [Buttigieg is the aforementioned gay presidential candidate.]

“And if that is true, what is the defense of Christianity?”
The “progressive” response is simple: Just rewrite the Book!

Buchanan also wrote,

---

“After the sexual revolution of the ’60s, births out of wedlock rocketed to where 40 percent of all children are born without a father in the home, as are half of Hispanics and 70 percent of all black children.

“Pornography, which used to bring a prison term, today dominates cable TV. Marijuana, once a social scourge, is the hot new product. And Sen. Kamala Harris wants prostitution legalized.”

---

And on and on it goes.

In our families. In our schools. In our places of business. In the media. In the world of entertainment and sports. And in the world of social media.

Wherever we turn, there is confusion. Deception. Darkness.

And that is because we who have the light are not living as light. Not shining as light. Not walking in truth. Not speaking the truth.

That’s why I cannot (and will not) be silent.
What about you?
It’s time we let our light shine — in word and in deed.
Do we really have a choice?

Fontgombault is a Benedictine monastery of the Solesmes Congregation named after the Benedictine movement founded in 1832 by Dom Prosper Gueranguer, who against all expectations, revived the Abbey of Solesmes built in 1010 but largely demolished by the French Revolution, and restored monastic life in France. The Fontgombault Abbey itself dates back to 1091 and was a flourishing abbey until the Calvinists sacked it in 1569. It was not restored till 1741, only to be partly demolished during the French Revolution, after which it was nationalized and sold off to various religious entities who used it for a variety of purposes - sucessively, a Trappist farm and kirsch distillery, a button factory, a military hospital and a diocesan seminary which closed in 1948 for lack of vocations. Wikipedia continues:

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In 1948, the empty buildings were restored to the site's original purpose when 22 monks from Solesmes Abbey settled it afresh as a Benedictine community. It is now the most populous of the Solesmes foundations, with over a hundred monks, and has in its turn made three foundations in France — Randol Abbey in 1971, Triors Abbey in 1984, and Gaussan Priory in 1994 — as well as Clear Creek Abbey in the United States in 1999, which was elevated from a priory in 2010. Mass is celebrated in Latin using the traditional pre-Vatican II rite as in the 1962 Roman Missal. As Benedictines of the Solesmes Congregation, Gregorian chant is at the heart of the community's liturgical practice, and recordings of their chants have become world-famous.

---

In the past few years, Rorate caeli has been privileged to publish the English translation of the homilies preached by Fontgombault's abbot on important Church holidays.

Fontgombault Easter Day Sermon
The Lessons of the Benedict XVI text:
Atheistic globalism enslaves, but Christ Lives!
by the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau
Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

---

Do not be afraid. (Mk 16:6}

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My dearly beloved Sons,
Last night, we were close to Christ during His resurrection, and we renewed the promises of our baptism. This morning, in the light of the most solemn of the “Days of the Lord”, and then all along Easter time and the months to come, we will have to keep with braveness these promises, we will have to keep them alive, not because we trust in our own strength, but by drawing this strength from the assistance of the risen Lord.

He is our life. He is our hope. How could we, after living the Passion’s sorrowful hours, after sharing the joys of the resurrection, content ourselves with being merely poll Christians, Christians practicing occasionally or according to circumstances, Christians who defend a few muddled values, or more or less murky ideologies? Let us be Christians in truth, namely, authentic disciples of Christ, of the Christ Who is risen, but Who, before resurrecting, died on the Cross.

We have to acknowledge it - it is not an easy task to be a Christian. These last weeks, the media have profusely spoken of the Church, and of certain churchmen. The lynching by the media of the Primate of the Gauls, the archbishop of Lyon, the insults endured by some priests while they were getting about, point out the last of the Beatitudes to us:

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Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. (Mt 5:11-12)

---

The Easter morning joy is preceded by the sufferings of Good Friday. Let us gather in our prayer all those who have government or teaching responsibilities within the Church.

In a recent text, Benedict XVI recalled the collapse of morals between 1960 and 1980, and he made this consideration:

---

When God does die in a society, it becomes free, we were assured. In reality, the death of God in a society also means the end of freedom, because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation.

---

If it is easy to muddle up and lose the reference points meant to orientate life, such as those of natural law, it is much harder to find them back.

In their responsibilities, the bishops partake in the Son of God’s solicitude for His Church and for all men and women, but also in His loneliness. They need our prayer. May the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love and truth, guide them.

The years of errors have taken their toll in victims. There are still victims. Victims of pedophilia, victims of abortion, victims of divorces, victims offered to the gods of money and pleasure. Among the culprits, there are priests. That is true. There have been silences, too many silences. There still are deafening silences...

On this Easter morning, let us pray for all the abuse victims within the Church, and also outside the Church. May Christ restore in them what was destroyed by those who should have built. May these poor find in the Church a loving and caring Mother; may they find again Christ.

In this Easter joy, let us remember without shame the Church’s long past of service in favor of humanity in its weakest states.
- Who founded orphanages and hospitals?
- Who is today fighting on behalf of life, from its very first moment in the maternal womb, until its natural end, against the death-bringing laws of many nations?
- During these holy days, so many priests throughout the world have spent long hours in the confessionals, listening to human misery and forgiving it. The media will not speak of these authentic witnesses of the Gospel, of these disciples of Christ.

Cardinal Robert Sarah recently encouraged young people:

---

Don’t allow yourselves to be upset by what is being written about cardinals, bishops, and priests; but search the Gospel, and fix your eyes on Christ. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and He gives the guarantee that we are not mistaken. Then, love the Church and serve her, no matter what is said about her. She is your mother, pure and immaculate, wrinkle-free and spotless. The stains we see on her face are actually our own stains. Her children are in a crisis, but the Church herself is not. Last, convert, first yourself, then be missionaries. Last, try to lead your friends to Christ. (Interview with Arthur Herlin, I.Media, Rome, April 5th, 2019)

---

On this Easter morning, Christ casts over all life the light of His resurrection. This light is the first witness of the fruitfulness of an unjust death. God never leaves the last word to evil. This day is truly “the day which the Lord has made.” He has chiseled it as an artist would have done, paying attention to the slightest detail. Nothing was left to chance. A day which is the witness of light’s victory over darkness, a day when all justice is restored, a day when divine Love topples all hatred.

In the tomb, very early in the morning, the angel of the Resurrection, under the guise of a young man clothed in a white robe and sitting on the right, reassures the two women: “Do not be frightened. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified? He is risen: he is not here.” Something similar had happened during the Christmas night, when the angel had come forward to meet the shepherds:

---

Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. (Lk 2:10-11)

---

Today, the Savior has overcome death. The promised salvation is achieved. The same words of comfort had also been addressed by the angel Gabriel to Mary during the Annunciation: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.” (Lk 1:30)

Whereas the gigantic machinery of atheistic globalism enslaves continents, peoples, and nations, to the gods “Money” and “Pleasure”, we may well be worried. Yet, on this Easter morning, the risen Lord offers us, as well as the world, His peace. “Do not be frightened. My victory is final and irrevocable.”

Death and life fought a tremendous duel: the Prince of life dies, then He reigns, alive. (Sequence of Easter Victimae Paschali Laudes)

Amen, Alleluia.

---

And this was Abbot Pateau's sermon at the Easter Vigil Mass:

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My dearly beloved Sons,

The flames of the Easter fire rending the night have opened the holy Vigil. The flame has sprung out from the stone. Christ has overcome death. He has come out of the tomb. God has risen Him up. He is alive. Such is the Easter message, the heart of our faith: “You seek Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, as He had foretold.”

What sense can we give to this event? God, if He be truly God, cannot die. As for Christ, He truly died, crucified upon the Golgotha. The Scripture texts bear witness to this fact. A lie could not have withstood the presence of so many witnesses.

As during Christmas night, the birth according to the flesh of the second Person of the Holy Trinity had no impact on His divine nature, thus the death and resurrection of the Son of God that we celebrate tonight are not those of His divine nature, but of His humanity.

Yet, why such an event? Were Christ’s incarnation and death truly indispensable for the salvation of mankind? Repairing perfectly Adam and Eve’s primeval rebellion against their Maker required that one of their descendants should love God and obey Him as much as He is lovable and deserves to be obeyed: only He who would be both truly God and truly man could do that.

The Son of God in His human nature has secured salvation for mankind. He has borne on His shoulders our own humanity’s burden of evil. He Who never sinned, offered Himself as a victim, nailed on a cross by the hands of men, nailed on a cross out of His love for each of us. And this humanity that had been offered to God and to men, men condemned it to an infamous death; yet, God did not abandon it to the power of death.

Christ sprung out of His tomb. From then on, He carries away in His wake all those who accept to be reconciled with God, and who, in order to do that, become His members, incorporated to the Church by the sacrament of baptism.

To baptize means to “plunge” or “immerse”; the “plunge” into the water symbolizes the catechumen’s burial into Christ’s death, from which he rises up by resurrection with Him, as “a new creature.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1214) We have to keep the faith.

Towards the end of his homily on the Le Bourget airfield, St. John Paul II asked: “France, eldest daughter of the Church, are you faithful to the promises of your baptism?” (June 1st, 1980) These words still resound in our ears, and they find an even more personal reflection during this holy night’s liturgy, when we have just renewed the promises of our own baptism.

First, we have renounced Satan, all the works he inspires, all his seductions. Evil is at our doors: rampaging wars, crimes and attacks too often carried out in the name of God, the proliferation of teaching structures in the service of the culture of death, the enslavement of nations to the power of money and pleasure: such are the works of death daily surrounding us. We are sorely tempted to throw in the towel, and to withdraw into ourselves, all the more since evil is also inhabiting our own hearts. He who wants to follow Christ should doubtless turn away from evil; but he should above all allow the Paschal fire to enlighten, to warm up, to set ablaze his own weary heart.

God’s commandments are not arbitrary constraints, but words of life, offered out of love. Let everyone who would reform the world begin by being a little light for those around him or her. Light creates a desire for light. It is an urgent task to develop anew a taste for light, for the beauty that comes from God.

After renouncing Satan, we have proclaimed our Faith. We believe in God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, in Jesus Christ His Son, in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

Each of our answers is in the first person of the plural. It is a personal answer, but we utter it within a much larger community, the Church, who proclaims, everywhere in the world tonight, one faith, one baptism. We share this one faith and this one baptism with the millions of men and women who, throughout centuries, often amid persecutions, faithfully kept and lived without a false sense of shame this precious deposit, and handed it down to us.

How could we, amid the joys of this night, forget those who have strayed away from the Church, or assert that they have lost the faith? He who was later to become Pius XII, declared on July 13th, 1937, under the vaults of Notre-Dame de Paris:

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Amidst the ceaseless rumbling of this huge metropolis, amidst the hustle and bustle of business and pleasure, in the fierce whirlpool of the struggle for life, Notre-Dame de Paris, a witness full of pity for barren despair and deceitful joys, Notre-Dame de Paris, always serene in her quiet and pacifying gravity, seems to keep ceaselessly repeating to all the passers-by, “Orate, fratres, Pray, brethren”. She seems to be, I would say, herself an 'Orate, fratres' of stone, a perpetual invitation to prayer.

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The very deep and widespread emotion before the terrible fire is a question for us. Was therefore the voice of the more than 800 year-old Lady still heard, so that so much agitation should take place around her sickbed? Abp. Aupetit, the archbishop of Paris, affirmed: "We have lost the beauty of the casket, but we have not lost the jewel it contained: Christ present in His Word and His Body given up for us."

Many today weep on the lost beauty of the casket. For a long time, they have been thinking they have forgotten or lost the jewel they had received on the day of their baptism. May Mary, who keeps the faith of her children, give back both the jewel and the casket to those who have kept a little love for her.

During this week, little oil lamps shining with the Paschal fire will be placed in the church, and the sacristans will keep them burning; and until the Ascension, the Paschal candle will tower over our assemblies. The Lord said:

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I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled? And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished! (Lk 12:49-50)

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The fire is there. Jesus kindled it during His resurrection. Yet, this fire should keep burning, not only at the end of a few candle wicks, but in our blazing hearts. It should keep burning in each of our families, our communities, our homes. The world urgently needs this fire, and we alone can give it to the world. Let us burn with this fire, let us burn with the source of life of the risen Lord.

Amen, Alleluia.

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Abbey of Notre Dame de Fontgombault

Surrexit Dominus vere! Alleluia!
Translated from

April 22, 2019

Dear friends, on this Angel's Monday 2019, I wish to re-propose the words that Benedict XVI addressed to the faithful at the Regina caeli in Castel Gandolfo on Angel's Monday 2011. He started off from that most beautiful announcement in Latin, "Surrexit Dominus vere! Alleluia!', which is also the most beautiful greeting which Christians can give each other to underscore that this is the heart of our faith. It is a profession of faith, a commitment of our life, an inviattion to lift up our eyes to God in adoration.

In our times today, in which even 'the Church' sends forth continual invitations to adore man more than God, may Benedict XVI's words give us comfort and courage.

Rather than just the text of that minihomily, I have chosen to reprint here my post of that Regina caeli eight years ago.

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'Regina caeli'
on Angel's Monday
April 25, 2011





Special guests at the holy Father's Regina caeli prayers on Easter Monday were representatives of the Italian anti-pedophilia association Meter which is marking the 15th National Day for child victims of abuse, violence, exploitation and indifference.

The Holy Father encouraged Meter, headed by Father Fortunato Di Nota, to continue with its work of prevention and consciousness-raising about these problems, especially in collaboration with parishes, oratories and other church associations involved in forming the new generations.

This was the Pope's general message in English:

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I am pleased to greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims here present for today’s Regina Caeli prayers.

With greater joy than ever, the Church celebrates these eight days in a special way, as she recalls the Lord Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.

Let us pray fervently that the joy and peace of Our Lady, Mary of Magdala and the Apostles will be our own as we welcome the risen Lord into our hearts and lives. I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon you all!

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Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's words:

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Surrexit Dominus vere! Alleluia! - Christ has truly risen, Alleluia!

The Resurrection of the Lord marks the renewal of our human condition - Christ conquered death which was caused by our sins, and brings us back to immortal life. The entire life of the Church and the very existence of Christians come from this event.

We read this today, the Angel's Monday, in the first mission statement of the nascent Church: "God raised this Jesus," the Apostle Peter proclaimed. "Of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you (both) see and hear" (Acts 3,32-33).

One of the characteristic signs of faith in the Resurrection is the greeting among Christians at Eastertime inspired by the ancient liturgical hymn: "Christ is risen. He is truly risen".

It is a profession of faith and a commitment of life, just as it was for the women described in the Gospel of St. Matthew: "And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me" (28,91-10).

"The entire Church", wrote the Servant of God Paul VI, "received the mission to evangelize, and the work of each person is important for everyone. It continues to be a sign that is both opaque and luminous of the new presence of Jesus, of his departure and permanence. It prolongs his presence and continues it" (Apost. Exh. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 8 December 1975, 15: AAS 68 [1976], 14).

How can we encounter the Lord and become ever more authentic witnesses for him? St. Maximus of Turin said: "Whoever wishes to reach the Lord must first place himself with his own faith at the right hand of God and sense himself in heaven with full conviction of the heart" (Sermo XXXIX a, 3: CCL 23, 157).

He must therefore learn to constantly fix the eye of mind and heart towards the altitude of God, on the Risen Christ. Thus God encounters man - in prayer, in adoration.

The theologian Romano Guardini observed that "adoration is not some thing accessory or secondary - it is the ultimate interest, the very sense of being. In adoration, man recognizes that which is validly pure and simple and holy" (La Pasqua, Meditazioni, Brescia 1995, 62).

Only if we know how to turn to God, to pray to him, are we able to discover the most profound significance of our life, and our daily journey becomes illumined by the light of the Risen One.

Dear friends, the Church, in the East and the West, celebrates today the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, 'wise announcer of the Word and writer of the doctrines of Christ', as he was described in ancient times. He is also the patron of the City of Venice, where, God willing, I will be making a pastoral visit on May 7-8.

Let us now invoke the Virgin Mary, so that she may help us comply faithfully and joyfully with the mission that the Risen Lord has entrusted to each of us.

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Cover of Vida Nueva's April 27 edition, on the upcoming Vatican constitution (Courtesy of Vida Nueva)

The fire at Notre Dame will soon have its literal ‘objective correlative’ in concrete form – a realization of the Rosica definition of Jorge Bergoglio (which, it turns out, Rosica had also plagiarized from a Protestant minister speaking about Bergoglio]

that will really burn down the one true Church of Christ as her Fathers and Doctors, saints and martyrs, popes, priests and laymen had striven with great effort and sacrifice to keep whole and intact through two millennia.

It shouldn’t be surprising, given the startling novelties he had pre-announced in Evangelii gaudium, but still, the new ‘Constitution’ that Bergoglio and his cardinal advisers have drawn up for the Roman Curia and the governance of the Church in general goes far beyond what one might have expected, even a super-realist like me. As I see it from a first reading of this preview, Bergoglio is hereby institutionalizing two of his major objectives as pope:
1) the primacy of pastoral work over doctrine, except that he presents pastoral ministry in the guise of ‘evangelization’ (which is a joke because Bergoglio has openly and often said he does not really want to ‘evangelize’ anyone, if by this we mean what ‘evangelization’ has always meant, which is to preach the Gospel of Christ to the world, with the aim of bringing the faith to those who are not Christian, and rekindling the faith among those Christians who have fallen away or become lukewarm and indifferent); and
2) making diocesan bishops superior in authority, at least within his diocese, to any official of the Roman Curia.

The worst implication of the first ‘reform’ is that now, anyone can preach or publish heterodoxies and heresies with impunity, provided his local bishop does not object. This destroys any vestige of unity, catholicity, apostolicity and Romanity in what is supposed to be the Church of Christ characterized as ‘one, holy, Catholic and apostolic’ (and for us in the Latin rite, ‘Roman’). Can there even be holiness in such a ‘church’?

In the thinking of Bergoglio and his advisers, ‘evangelization’ has nothing to do with doctrine – as if the content of the ‘evangelizing’ or ‘missionary’ message did not necessarily have to be the doctrine of the faith - as it had stood for 2013 years until Jorge Bergoglio came along without any intention of being bound by the bimillennial doctrine handed down to him, as Successor of Peter, by Scripture, Tradition and preceding Magisterium, to uphold, defend, and not alter in any substantial way.

Bergoglio’s new ‘Constitution’ for the Roman Curia
will place ‘evangelization’ ahead of doctrine
by Ines San Martin
Rome Bureau Editor

April 22, 2019

ROME - A new “super dicastery” on evangelization might be one of the most significant reforms of the governing structures of the Vatican, according to a new report.

Spanish journalist Dario Menor Torres, writing for the Spanish weekly Vida Nueva, reveals several elements of the new Vatican constitution that has been in development for years.

The biggest novelty in the document, called Praedicate Evangelium [“Preach the Gospel”], will be the creation of the “super dicastery” for evangelization, which will potentially be more important than the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), often called “The Supreme Congregation.”

Having its roots in the Roman Inquisition, the doctrinal office is the oldest among the congregations of the Roman Curia, and insiders still call it the Holy Office, as it is tasked with promulgating and defending Catholic doctrine and defending the Church from heresy.

Today, in addition to defending doctrine, it is also tasked with judging priests who’ve been accused of sexually abusing minors, with 17 officials dedicated almost exclusively to this task.

Another of the novelties in the new constitution is that the curia will no longer be divided into “congregations” and the less prestigious “pontifical councils;” instead all autonomous Vatican departments will be called “dicasteries,” which has already been applied to several new bodies established by Pope Francis.

The new “super dicastery” for evangelization will result from the merging of two already existing bodies: The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, also known as Propaganda Fide (Proapgating the faith), that is tasked with overseeing “missionary territories;” and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, that was created in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI to confront the rapid secularization of Western countries.

Menor’s report is based on interviews he conducted with Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias and Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, both members of the pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisers, which was established at the beginning of Francis’s pontificate to help reform the Curia.

“Pope Francis always underlines that the Church is missionary,” Maradiaga told Vida Nueva. “For this reason, it’s logical that we put in the first place the dicastery for Evangelization and not the one for the Doctrine of the Faith. This way, the pope sends a significant signal of the reform to the entire People of God,” the cardinal said. Gracias agreed.

“The main point of the new Apostolic Constitution is that the mission of the Church is evangelization,” the Indian cardinal told Vida Nueva. “It puts it at the center of the Church and everything the Curia does. It will be the first dicastery. The name of the text shows that evangelization is the principal objective, ahead of anything else.”

[Again, what exactly do the Bergogliacs mean by ‘evangelization’? Does it mean to lighten the ‘burden’ on Catholics of what it means to lead a Christian life – even if Jesus said that the way would be narrow and difficult for those who wish to enter the Kingdom of God? As Bergoglio already did with allowing communion for couples living in adultery by Jesus’sown definition of what adultery is?]

Crux had exclusive access to the article before this week’s edition reaches subscribers on Saturday.

According to the report from Vida Nueva, Francis could sign the new constitution on June 29, the Solemnity of Peter and Paul. Conforming to what Gracias told Crux earlier this month, the draft of Praedicate Evangelium was sent to the world’s bishops’ conferences, heads of the Vatican’s dicasteries and other Church officials to review the document and send suggestions by the end of May.

The plan is to compile all the suggestions, make the necessary modifications, and for the Council of Cardinals Advisers to review it again during their June 25-27 meeting.

Beyond the mega-Dicastery for Evangelization, the constitution reportedly also stipulates the creation of a Dicastery for Charity and the merger of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture.

In addition, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (CPM), created by Francis to assist him in formulating measures the global Church can make to prevent and combat clerical sexual abuse, will become a part of the curial structure to make it “more effective.” [Not that it has even had a chance to do anything in the first three years of its existence, with two of its lay members resigning in a huff, after which there was a year-long hiatus when it was in limbo, only to be resuscitated as part of the Bergoglio Vatican's cosmetic response to the new conflagration over clerical sex abuses and their cover-up. Now that it will become a presumably autonomous body [dicastery?] within the 'new Curia', will it then take over the tribunal function forced on the CDF by the first clerical sex abuse crisis in 2002? Leaving the CDF with exactly what to do? Since they cannot have a Do-Nothing Dicastery, they will probably abolish it altogether? I bet many of the episcopal conferences and bishops whose suggestions are being solicited on these reforms will recommend that! Henceforth, they will be their own doctrinal chiefs, so what do they need the CDF for? And the CDF itself would be left with no universal Church doctrine to safeguard and enforce, so it has been made superfluous.

Among other things, until he can find a good pretext to abrogate Summorum Pontificum, this demotion of the CDF to insignificance, if not its outright abolition, is the biggest slap Bergoglio can administer to Benedict XVI. "See how inconsequential your congregation really is in the scheme of things? How could it have been considered the 'premier' congregation at all?"

[sim=10pt]Menor writes that Praedicate Evangelium places the Curia at the service of both the pope and the college of bishops.

“As successors of the apostles, the bishops don’t have an ecclesiological position that puts them below those who work in the Roman Curia,” Maradiaga said. Hence, once the constitution is approved, a bishop from any diocese, no matter how small, will have the same hierarchical power as the prefect of a Vatican dicastery.

Once the text is approved - which will be on a 25-year “trial period” - the Vatican dicasteries will no longer be instruments for the pope to supervise local churches, but will actually be there to serve bishops from around the world.

[They are already that – they serve the pope by enforcing the decrees and rules of the universal Church on all local Churches. But under the Bergoglio constitution, there will no longer be a universal Church, if each local Church will have autonomy, even in terms of doctrine.]

The new dicastery for charity, that will absorb what today is known as the Office of the Papal Almoner, will come right after the Secretary of State and the Dicastery for Evangelization, as a reminder that charity is also a key element of the Catholic faith. This office will “feed” from the donations the pope receives and also by tapping into the Vatican’s central bank, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, or APSA. (A separate institution, the Institute for the Works of Religion, is often called the Vatican bank, but mostly serves religious orders and institutions.)

All these reforms are a continuation of changes already implemented, like the merging of the Vatican’s media offices into the Dicastery for Communications; and the merger of most of the pontifical councils into two mega-structures: The Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life and the Dicastery for Integral Human Development.

According to Maradiaga, Praedicate Evangelium can give back to the faithful the hope that Francis’s pontificate had generated at its start. “It offers to the people of God a new and brave perspective of reform in the spirit of Francis,” he said, adding that the constitution takes a lot from the Argentine pontiff’s first major texts, such as Evangelii Gaudium, Laudato Si’, and Amoris Laetitia.

“I’m personally satisfied with the result,” Gracias told Vida Nueva. “It won’t only be a cosmetic change but it will be the impetus for a change of mentality that is already underway.” [What terrifying and horrible words! -"reform in the spirit of Francis" and 'a change of mentality that is already underway".]

The furor over Amoris laetitia and the DUBIA and the Vigano accusations will seem like little fires in the wake of the conflagration - the Holocaust, perhaps, is the correct word (i.e., the utter destruction by the consuming fire of Bergoglio's hubris) of the Church of Christ as we know it. Who know what other devastatingly nasty surprises are to be found in Bergoglio's Constitution? He said he would change the Church completely in four years - it's taken him an extra two years but that is exactly what he is doing. And because as pope, he is the supreme authority in the Church, there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Nothing but an act of God.

Meanwhile, there is no end to the infinite variety of outrages to the faith that the church of Bergoglio and its ministers can think of. Gloria TV has posted a video clip that is even more offensive than that we saw a month ago when 'the Holy Father' literally pushed away persons wishing to kiss the Ring of the Fisherman that he wears.

gloria.tv/article/FPMYSM4Wmvft3BvCbtGVxdPz4

The video clip comes from the full Mass video posted online by the Archdiocese of Santiago. Obviously, they are proud of what their new bishop has done.

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Radical bishop denies communion
to kneeling Catholics

Bishop Celestino Aós, the Apostolic Administrator of Santiago de Chile, denied Holy Communion to several faithful who were kneeling during the Chrism Mass in Santiago Cathedral (April 18) in order to receive the Body of Christ.

Aós replaced liberal Santiago Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, 77, in March. Francis had kept Ezzati in place beyond his retirement age but finally accepted his resignation as a civilian court started investigating him for sex misdeeds by persons under his jurisdiction.

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BTW, with his new Apostolic Constitution, Bergoglio will not even have to abrogate Summorum Pontificum. His soon-to-be conpletely autonomous bishops can simply refuse to allow the Traditional Mass to be said in their dioceses, as the Bishop of Cremona, Italy, and his immediate predecessor have done. and not a few other bishops around the world. A couple of weeks ago, I posted my translation of Aldo Maria Valli's account of the Cremona ban on the Mass of the Ages. Now Gloria TV reports that the mindless bishop, Antonio Napolioni, told a parish council meeting that "he will never allow the Old Mass in his diocese and that his decision is backed by the Vatican".

But why is it that those who are reporting Napolioni's adamance have not bothered asking him to explain why he - and every bishop and priest who want to have nothing to do with the Traditional Mass - are being so tyrannical about imposing their personal prejudice? How can the Traditional Mass possibly hurt them, except to wound their egos that can brook no opposition whatsoever! If that's not being evil, then they are very sick men who have no business being ministers of God.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/04/2019 09:00]

Just what I was arguing in some of my remarks on the article about the brief meeting of Greta Thunberg and Jorge Bergoglio - and I was not even aware that Earth Day 2019 was at hand. The one glaring thing about this article is that it does not even mention climate change, which is surely one of the major concerns of the most ardent environmentalists, whose wild fear-mongeirng speculations in the past two decades have oscillated between global warming, then global cooling, and I think we're back to global warming... What none of these so-called scientists deliberately ignore is that in geologic time - measured in millions of years, not decades, much less years as these hotshots do their reckoning - a 'trend' in geological phenomena of even a few centuries is but a blip on the geological time scale.

On the 49th Earth Day,
gloomy predictions have not come to pass
Through new technologies and through legislation,
environmental trends have improved significantly in the USA
by Nicolas Loris

April 22, 2019

Nicolas Loris, an economist, focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

This Earth Day, it almost feels like we should be carving some turkey. Why? Because we have a lot to be thankful for since the first Earth Day event occurred 49 years ago.

We should be thankful that the gloom-and-doom predictions made throughout the past several decades haven’t come true.

Fearmongering about explosive population growth, food crises, and the imminent depletion of natural resources have been a staple of Earth Day events since 1970. And the common thread among them is that they’ve stirred up a lot more emotions than facts.

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate … that there won’t be any more crude oil,” ecologist Kenneth Watt warned around the time of the first Earth Day event. “You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'” Watt also warned of global cooling and nitrogen buildup rendering all of the planet’s land unusable.

The issue, however, is that present trends don’t continue. They change dramatically for a number of reasons. Innovation happens. Consumer behavior changes. Importantly, price signals play a huge role in communicating information to energy producers as well as consumers.

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution.

Higher prices at the pump encourage companies to extract and supply more oil. Expensive gas prices, meanwhile, motivate entrepreneurs to invest in alternatives to oil, whether that’s batteries, natural gas vehicles, or biofuels. Drivers will examine their consumption options as well, whether carpooling, finding alternative modes of transportation, or, over time, purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Here we are, 19 years past Watt’s arbitrary deadline, and drivers are pulling up to the pump saying, “Fill ‘er up, buddy” (figuratively speaking, as Watts also didn’t foresee self-service stations) without any cause for concern.

Thanks to human ingenuity and the entrepreneurial drive of energy producers, the United States is now the world’s largest oil producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and continually breaking records.

While global energy poverty and food insecurity remain a pressing challenge, the problem is getting much better, not worse. World Bank and United Nations data show extreme poverty and global hunger has noticeably dropped since 1970. And according to the International Energy Agency, the number of people without access to electricity fell to below 1 billion people for the first time.

Clearly, there’s work to be done. But signs are pointing in the right direction.

In the United States, the common perception is that the country’s environmental state is deteriorating. On the contrary, through investment in new technologies, and through legislation, environmental trends have improved significantly in the United States.

Pollutants known to cause harm to public health and the environment are declining. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest air quality trends report, the combined emissions of the six common air pollutants have decreased 73% between 1970-2017.

We should be thankful for economic liberties that provide people with the means to protect the environment. As a country grows economically, it increases the financial ability of its citizens and businesses to care for the environment and reduce pollutants emitted from industrial growth.

Countries with greater economic freedoms have cleaner environments and greater environmental sustainability. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index show a highly positive correlation between a country’s environmental performance and its economic freedom.

Freer economies have access to more products and technologies that make our lives healthier and the environment cleaner. For instance, the availability of simple products such as soaps, cleaners, and detergents makes our homes dramatically cleaner and healthier. The development of sanitation systems and availability of garbage collection greatly reduce many types of diseases and reduce toxins in the air and water.

These products and services may not be what immediately comes to mind on Earth Day, but they’ve had an enormous impact on cleaning up the planet.

And we should be thankful for clearly defined and protected private property rights. One of the first lessons I learned in economics is that nobody washes a rental car because you don’t care for what you don’t own.

Property rights are a central hallmark in the United States and around the world for improved environmental stewardship, conservation and health of species, wildlife, habitats, forests, and other resources. The absence of enforced private property rights in developing country remains one of the largest barriers to improved prosperity and environmental well-being.

Catastrophic but unlikely gloom-and-doom predictions will continue to grab media headlines, but free societies with the protection of property rights are tried and true pathways to a healthier, cleaner world. As we reflect on the progress we’ve made as a free society, let’s celebrate and be thankful.

50 years of apocalyptic global warming
predictions - and where we are today
by Tyler Durden

April 23, 2019

Two of the most important problems that the so-called Green New Deal will attempt to solve at the cost of incalculable trillions are global warming and its consequences, including drought, famine, floods and massive starvation.

You may recall that Obama in his 2015 State of the Union speech declared that the greatest threat facing us was neither terrorism nor ISIS. It wasn’t nuclear weapons in rogue states either. “No challenge  poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” said Obama.

His entire administration including Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry, frequently repeated the claim that climate change was the greatest threat facing the world. It was a sentiment Obama stressed again during an Earth Day trip to the Florida Everglades where he said, “This is not a problem for another generation. It has serious implications for the way we live right now”.

More recently, presidential hopefuls like Beto O’Rourke, along with most Democrat candidates, declared their zealous support for the Green New Deal in forecasting that the world will end in 12 years if nothing is done.

“This is the final chance, the scientists are absolutely unanimous on this — that we have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis. Not to be melodramatic, but the future of the world depends on us right now here where we are.”

This leads to the question I pose in this brief, data-driven, essay: What kind of track record do the politicians and their experts have in their climate predictions? After all, some of these predictions were made 10, 20 or even 50 years ago. Can’t we now look back at their predictions and begin to hold them accountable?

As others have done, I have chosen to begin with the first Earth Day “Celebration” in 1970. Now who can be against Earth Day? It’s a charming idea, and I have been an enthusiastic supporter since my college days in Ann Arbor, when we celebrated the event on the campus of the University of Michigan.

Here’s what the experts were saying almost a half century ago on Earth Day, 1970:

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
— Harvard biologist George Wald

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
— Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human Habitation.”
— Washington University biologist Barry Commoner

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100–200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years. … Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born. … [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.
— Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions …. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
— North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter

“In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
— Life magazine

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable. … By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate … that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any. … The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
— Kenneth Watt

Global Warming and Massive Starvation
I will focus my attention on the two most important predictions: Global Warming and Massive Starvation. If we return to the failed prediction of global cooling noted above, we can put the temperature data in a wider perspective.

NASA data show that a period of warming in the 1920s and 30s was followed by two or three decades of cooling temperatures, from the 1940s to 1970. At that time many experts, including Carl Sagan, warned us of a possible ice age — only to have the climate pattern change on them.

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, scientists began to record slightly warmer temperatures. Curiously, as we look back at this period, NASA sounded the alarm for global warming while a short time later the New York Times cited NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] data showing no warming over the past 100 years in the US.


Since then, group think and political correctness, plus rewards in government grants and university promotions, have created incentives for nearly everyone to jump onto the current bandwagon of projecting an escalating warming trend. Once again we came back to the doomsday scenario that characterized 1970’s.

Then, out of the blue, the darned climate changed again. Global temperature data has been roughly flat since about 1998, even cooling by .056 degrees C from February 2016 to February 2018, according to official NASA global temperature data. Of course, this is just a two-year trend.

You may have noticed that nearly all of the doomsday theories seem to begin with the phrase, “if current trends continue.” But, as I have just reviewed, current trends don’t continue. Global temperatures go down, then up, then stay flat. Population growth tapers off, new oil reserves are discovered, agricultural yields increase at even higher rates. Doomsday forecasters always overestimate gloomy trends and underestimate human ingenuity in problem solving.

This raises the question: How would an informed citizen make sense of our current predicament?

Without question there has been an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. A majority of scientists believe this to be the primary source of the global warming that has occurred.

Just how much warming has occurred?


The scientific consensus is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen about 0.4 °C over the past 100 years. This is far less than experts predicted. And therein lies the problem: scientists are better at observation than prediction.

A case in point: experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research have now predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. Notice the nearly 5-fold difference between the conservative and more liberal (one is tempted to say “progressive”) estimates. This strikes me as akin to meteorologists predicting tomorrow’s high as somewhere between 40 and 80 degrees. Not much of a forecast if you are trying to decide whether to head to the beach or not. The confidence interval seems pretty safe, but the precision leaves much to be desired. Just how much faith should one put in such projections, given the flawed models and track record of failed predictions?

Regarding the other staggering Earth Day forecast of widespread starvation into hundreds of millions, recent satellite data from NASA and NOAA offer a compelling explanation for the spectacular failure of these predictions.


Almost half of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening over the past 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions.

This greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States, or more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000’s. That increase represents an enormous amount of food to feed a hungry planet, which is one reason the Earth Day predictions of mass starvation never materialized.

Because the mainstream media refuses to report such important data as this is from NASA and NOAA that do not support their doomsday narrative, I have never actually met anyone who knew anything about this when I mention it. I only learned about this myself a few years ago because of Matt Ridley, whose excellent blog I recommend without reserve:

You may remember from high school biology that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth. Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide with nitrogen drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth. The good news is that the impact that this greening has had in reducing hunger and starvation around the globe is undiminished, despite going unreported. When is the last time you heard a report of massive human starvation of hundreds of millions, or even tens of milions. How about 1 million … do I hear a hundred thousand, anyone? Anyone?

Fact Check: Fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters.
This is clearly the opposite of what you hear from the mainstream media, which loves to provide as much coverage as possible of one disaster after another. A more rational analysis would examine the average number of deaths per decade from 1920-1917. But this would show a “huuuge” decline in deaths caused by climate change, and we can’t have that now can we? The data below are from the most respected global database, the International Disaster Database.



In contrast to the dire Earth Day predictions of 1970, climate-related deaths have been declining strongly for 70 years. Notice that this decline in the absolute number deaths occurred while the global population increased four-fold. Thus, the individual risk of dying from climate-related disasters has declined almost 99% from the 1920s to the present day.

Our increased wealth and technological capacity to respond to natural disasters has greatly reduced our collective human climate vulnerability – Good news for rational beings, bad news for Democrat candidates.

Sandro Magister today devotes his blogpost to previewing a new book on Benedict XVI which s also partly by him because it documents letters by him and their corresponding replies on a subject about which he has expressed himself many times, in his writings before and after he became Pope, and in his addresses as Pope to Jewish communities in the synagogues he visited (Cologne, New York, Rome), in many private audiences with Jewish delegations, and of course, his visit to the Holy Land in 2009. The book however documents material from 2016 to 2018.

magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2019/04/24/the-two-paschas-of-jews-and-christians-a-previously-unpublished-letter-by-the-pope-e...

I will not post Magister's article now because it makes references to documents that he describes only in passing, and I am not comfortable posting Magister's narrative until I can check out those documents.

The book itself will not be formally presented in Rome until May 16, at the Pontifical Lateran University. Speakers will inclue Rabbi Folger, Mons. Georg Gaenswein representing the Pope Emeritus, Elio Guerrero, and the editor of L'Osservatore romano,, Andrea Monda.

Cardinal Maradiaga, the face of Pope Francis's curial reform, apparently remains non-accountable and untouchable despite many consistent accusations of his questionable management of his archdiocese in Honduras and other corrupt behavior.

Corruption of Pope Francis's reform chief
exposed in groundbreaking new book
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman


April 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – According to the widow of a former ambassador to the Vatican from Honduras, Pope Francis’s reform chief Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga has maintained an abusive and mafia-like regime in Honduras for decades, promoting false investment schemes, diverting money from the local university and from the government to shadowy and immoral purposes, and ruthlessly protecting his corrupt auxiliary bishop, who was forced to resign in 2018 following accusations of sexual abuse of seminarians.

Moreover, the conduct of the cardinal is well-known to senior members of the Vatican curia and even to Pope Francis himself, who appears to be beholden to Rodríguez Maradiaga and is unable – or unwilling – to correct the wayward prelate.

Martha Alegría Reichmann, the widow of former Vatican ambassador Alejandro Valladares Lanza, gives readers a detailed portrayal of the dark world of Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga in a new book recently published in Honduras, Traiciones Sagradas (Sacred Betrayals), in which she offers a personal, insider’s view of the alleged misbehavior and abuses of the coordinator of Pope Francis’s “C9” Council of Cardinal Advisors, charged with reforming the Church’s governance.

Alegría’s groundbreaking book contains numerous revelations and descriptions that illustrate the depth of corruption of the man Pope Francis has chosen as the public face of his reform project, and who mysteriously continues to occupy his position despite the massive scandals that have engulfed him since 2017.

Alegria claims that Rodríguez Maradiaga regards Pope Francis as indebted to him for his election and for convincing him to accept the papacy, and indicates that even Francis cannot control the cardinal, who seems exempt from accountability for his personal misbehavior and abuse of power.

The book also sheds light on what Alegría calls the “excessive” and “unhealthy” relationship between the Cardinal and his close friend and later Auxiliary Bishop, José Juan Pineda Fasquelle, who was housed with Rodríguez Maradiaga for years in the archbishop’s residence of Villa Iris – along with his homosexual boyfriend, Erick Cravioto Fajardo, a layman who dressed as a priest.

According to Alegría, Rodríguez Maradiaga ruthlessly destroyed the careers of at least six priests who raised objections to Pineda’s scandalous behavior, reportedly including sexual predation of seminarians, which eventually led to his forced resignation in 2018.

The book gives the perspective of someone who had been one of Rodríguez Maradiaga’s closest friends, but became a victim of his deceptions and abuse of power, losing most of her family’s savings in a fraudulent investment scheme pushed on her and her husband by the cardinal. Alegría says that the cardinal attempted to silence her and even to induce her to lie to protect him, leading her to a rude awakening regarding his true character.

Alegría reveals that she and her husband were close personal friends of Rodriguez Maradiaga and his close friend, Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, for more than two decades, and that he, Rodríguez Maradiaga, stayed at their home in Rome so frequently that they thought of him as a family member who even spoke of coming to live with them after he retired.

However, a series of betrayals by Rodríguez Maradiaga and Pineda would destroy their relationship and bring Alegría to a painful awareness of the crisis of corruption currently roiling the Catholic Church.

According to Alegría, Rodriguez Maradiaga used his personal influence as Archbishop of Tegucigalpa to ensure that her husband was reappointed to the ambassadorship year after year, while Valladares Lanza worked to convince high members of the Vatican curia to support making Rodríguez Maradiaga into a cardinal, a project that was ultimately successful, making him the first Honduran to be given such an honor.

Alegría also states that her husband helped Fr. Pineda to receive his appointment as Rodríguez Maradiaga´s auxiliary bishop. Pineda even went on a trip with the couple to Russia, paid for by the couple, and Alegría lent him several rare books as well as historical manuscripts of great value inherited by her husband, which had belonged to Marco Aurelio Soto, a president of Honduras during the 19th century.

However, the relationship began to fall apart after Pineda, now an auxiliary bishop, sent a friend to visit the couple in Rome, a man who was already known to them from Pineda himself to be a practicing homosexual who had been kicked out of a school for personal misbehavior. Despite receiving the man politely and inviting him to dinner, he began to speak badly of them to others, writes Alegría. When Alegría complained to Pineda about his friend’s behavior, she realized that the bishop had a deep personal loyalty to the man, and that she and her husband had, almost overnight, become Pineda’s enemy.

Pineda “couldn’t hide his displeasure at what I was telling him,” writes Alegría. “I only told him what had happened and it seemed like I was offending him and insulting his mother. . . . What’s more, he told me that I was offending him.” Alegría got up and left. Later, one of Rodríguez Maradiaga’s sisters, who was a close friend of the family as well, told the couple that Pineda had told her that he would “put his hands into a fire for that friend, but not for Martha [Alegría].”

From that point on Pineda would not speak to the couple, and the two decided to ask him to return the books and the historic documents that they had lent him a couple of years earlier, but to no avail – Pineda has never returned them, even after Alegría filed a canonical suit against him in the Holy See for the crime of theft. Soon, the couple would also learn that Pineda and his homosexual friend were maneuvering to bring about Valladares Lanza’s removal from the ambassadorship, Alegría writes.

According to Alegría, the couple’s falling out with Pineda would lead also to their falling out with Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, who would prove himself to be an unconditional defender of Pineda in the face of any and every accusation, no matter how well founded.

Despite all that her husband had done for the cardinal and despite their decades of close friendship, Rodríguez Maradiaga would turn on them completely, after inducing them to turn over their savings to a bogus investment firm which would soon disappear, taking the bulk of their family’s savings with it.

After numerous attempts to communicate with Pineda to obtain the documents that she had lent to him, Alegría says she sent an email to Pineda giving him 15 days to return them or she would initiate a canonical suit against him for theft. Alegría says that Pineda forwarded the email to Rodríguez Maradiaga, who then began to intervene in favor of his protégé.

While at a Honduran hospital with her dying husband following the end of his ambassadorship, Alegría was approached by one of the cardinal’s clergy, Fr. Carlo Magno Núñez, who told her that Rodríguez Maradiaga wanted her to “forget about the issue of the documents,” according to Alegría, and that “he didn’t like people to fight, that I knew about the appreciation the cardinal has for his auxiliary [bishop], and he gave me to understand that he would not permit people to bother him.” He would later accuse Alegría of having “hatred in her heart” and would tell her that she had to accept Pineda as he was.

Later, after Alegría had submitted a canonical suit to Cardinal Marc Ouellet against Pineda for theft and had spoken to Ouellet about it, the cardinal began to stonewall her and apparently shelved the case. Alegría says has never received a verdict in the matter, and believes it is because Rodríguez Maradiaga used his powerful position as coordinator of the Council of Cardinal Advisors to cow Ouelett and shut down her suit.

“I now understand how things work, Your Eminence,” wrote Alegría to Ouellet. “Cardinal Maradiaga favors his auxiliary because he’s his good friend, and you favor Maradiaga because he’s a friend of the pope, and so nothing is resolved, there is no justice. Is this the Holy Mother Church that our Lord Jesus Christ wants?” She says she never received a response.

Alegría relates in the book that Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga induced her husband to turn over the family’s savings to a bogus investment firm that ultimately disappeared with Alegría’s inheritance following her husband’s death. She claims that she informed Pope Francis himself about this deed during a personal audience, but that Francis refuses to act against the cardinal because of his debt to him for his election to the papacy and even his acceptance of his election.

The investment firm, called Leman Wealth Management, was run by a British Muslim named Youssry Henien. Alegría says that Rodríguez Maradiaga visited the couple in Rome a year before their return to Honduras, and urged them insistently to place their savings in Leman, claiming it promised a 7% rate of return, and that he had invested all of the money of the archdiocese in the venture.

The couple was hesitant to place all of their savings in one investment, even if it guaranteed such a high rate of return, but the cardinal insisted that it was safe. “’But this is safe, that’s why I invested all of the money of the diocese, I HAVE ALREADY INVESTIGATED IT,’ he emphasized with great certitude,” writes Alegría.

Despite their misgivings, the couple decided to trust the cardinal. Alegría reports that the cardinal induced others to make investments in the venture as well. All lost their money in the fraudulent scheme.

Leman Wealth Management suddenly disappeared in 2012, with the widowed Alegría’s savings as well as that of others who had followed Rodríguez Maradiaga’s advice. Alegría writes that the cardinal and other archdiocesan personnel claimed to her that the archdiocese also had been deceived and had lost money to the scheme, and that they were working to receive the lost funds.

Alegría reports that although the cardinal gave her some money to help her, he was evasive about efforts to recover the money, and gave her what she regarded as a fanciful story about intrigue involving the CIA and Leman. She claims that the cardinal even told her to lie about his promotion of the scam, and to tell her attorneys that it was someone else who had led her to it.

Increasingly, the cardinal avoided and stonewalled Alegría, refusing to answer her inquiries, and told his clergy not to discuss the matter with her. Her lost investment was never returned.

Later, Rodríguez Maradiaga would tell the media that he didn’t know anything about Leman Wealth Management, and that the archdiocese had never approved any investments with the firm. His claim appears to contradict not only Alegría’s account, but also an investigative report commissioned by Pope Francis on the scandal and widely reported in the major media, which indicate that the cardinal invested the equivalent of millions of dollars in Leman.

Eventually, Alegría decided to go to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, who was a friend of her late husband and had even celebrated a special Requiem Mass at the Vatican for him following his death. After Alegría informed Parolin of Rodríguez Maradiaga’s misconduct, the latter broke his silence and sent her a message through a subordinate, telling her “not to go around speaking badly of him,” in Alegría’s words. She responded by rebuking him for his misbehavior and copied Parolin. Their relationship was definitively broken.

Meanwhile, numerous complaints by laymen, priests, religious, and seminarians against the cardinal and Bishop Pineda had reached the Vatican through the apostolic nuncio, who proved himself to be open and objective in listening to those who spoke against Maradiaga's regime. As a result, says Alegría, both the cardinal and Pineda boycotted a traditional breakfast held by the nuncio for the members of the episcopal conference during one of its meetings.

In response to the complaints, the Holy See launched an investigation of Pineda, and the cardinal began to double down in the defense of his auxiliary, who he claimed was the victim of “envy” on the part of others. According to Alegría, Rodriguez Maradiaga withheld an annual Christmas bonus from his archdiocesan clergy in December of 2015, expressly stating in a private meeting with them in January that this was a punishment for having spoken badly about Pineda to the papal nuncio. He even made a racist remark about the nuncio, Alegría alleges.

She adds that the cardinal went so far as to order his clergy, seminarians, and personnel at the University of Tegucigalpa to write letters to the Vatican supportive of Pineda.

In 2017, the Vatican began a formal investigation of accusations against Bishop Pineda, and Alegría was called to testify regarding his purported theft of her husband’s historical manuscripts. In November of that year, Alegría was granted an audience with Pope Francis himself, to offer her complaint to him in person regarding Rodríguez Maradiaga’s involvement in her financial victimization.

“I told [Pope Francis] that I had come from Honduras especially to speak with him,” writes Alegría. “He immediately told me that he had read my letters and was aware of everything, adding that he had already given instructions to the Secretary of State [Cardinal Pietro Parolin] to resolve my problem and that I could count on all of his goodwill.”

Alegría then sent a transcript of the Pope’s comments to Parolin, who didn’t respond to her for three months. When a mutual friend went to Parolin to ask him what was happening with the case, Parolin told him that the matter was in the Pope’s hands and he could do nothing. It was now Francis himself who was stonewalling Alegría.

Ultimately, Alegría decided in early 2018 to give an interview revealing the whole affair to the Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi. Alegría writes that when Cardinal Parolin learned of the impending interview, he sent her a message stating that the Pope wanted her to hold off until she had met with Rodriguez Maradiaga to discuss the matter during his visit to Rome. She was informed that the cardinal had accepted the pope’s proposal for a discussion and was happy to meet with her, apparently ending his years of silence on the matter. However, to her amazement, he again stonewalled her attempts to arrange the meeting, and left Rome for Honduras, claiming he would meet with her there at some time in the future. She refused, regarding it as yet another ruse of the cardinal, and did the interview with Fittipaldi, breaking the story to the international media. The Vatican gave no response to the story.

In December of 2017 some of the results of the report sent to Pope Francis by investigators were leaked to the media, which reported that Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga was accused of taking over 40,000 USD per month from the University of Tegucigalpa, of which he was chancellor, for many years, and of diverting millions of dollars in archdiocesan funds to Leman Wealth Management, where at least some of it had disappeared in German banks, along with the company itself. Maradiaga responded by asserting that that the archdiocese never approved any investments in the company, but did not unequivocally deny that he had personally done so.

Moreover, L’Espresso’s Emiliano Fittipaldi reported that Auxiliary Bishop Pineda was accused of diverting large sums of archdiocesan and government grant money to support friends who were suspected of being his homosexual paramours, one of whom was a layman named “Erick,” who dressed as a priest and lived at the same residence with Pineda and Rodríguez Maradiaga himself, Villa Iris. Sources told Fittipaldi that the Vatican had been informed and “the Pope knows everything.”

Then, in March of 2018, Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register reported that Bishop Pineda had been accused of homosexual predation against seminarians in statements submitted to the Vatican investigator. Pentin also confirmed the earlier L’Espresso article regarding Pineda’s use of money to support homosexual partners. Soon after, Pope Francis accepted Pineda’s resignation of his office, but no canonical sanctions are known to have been imposed on him.

In July, Pentin revealed the existence of a letter from dozens of seminarians of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa complaining of a “homosexual network” in the seminary protected by the seminary rector. Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga reportedly denounced the letter as “gossip.” In August, Pentin reported that Rodríguez Maradiaga was protecting a large cadre of homosexual seminarians, having sent them out of the seminary on temporary assignments to conceal them while they were under potential scrutiny.

Since then, Rodríguez Maradiaga’s scandalous conduct and associations have been covered only in a limited way in the international media, as well as in Honduras itself, where the country’s major media, controlled by its tight-knit ruling class, has largely ignored the scandals, and even Alegría’s tell-all book.

Despite it all, the cardinal remains the Coordinator of the pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisors, which has just worked out a major reform of the curia that would place the integrity of doctrine below “evangelization” in order of priority.

The cardinal’s ongoing impunity in the Vatican provides striking evidence of the corruption reigning in the highest levels of the Catholic hierarchy under the regime of Pope Francis.

Published a week short of his 92nd birthday, Joseph Ratzinger’s essay on the epidemiology of the clergy sex-abuse crisis vividly illustrated his still-unparalleled capacity to incinerate the brain circuits of various Catholic progressives. [What a forcefully descriptive phrase!]

The origins of the text written by the Pope Emeritus remain unclear: Did he initially write it to assist the bishops who met in Rome this past February to address the abuse crisis? But whatever its history, the Ratzingerian diagnosis is well worth considering.

In Benedict XVI’s view, the Catholic crisis of clerical sexual abuse was, in the main, an ecclesiastical by-product of the “sexual revolution”: a tsunami of cultural deconstruction that hit the Church in a moment of doctrinal and moral confusion, lax clerical discipline, poor seminary formation, and weak episcopal oversight, all of which combined to produce many of the scandals with which we’re painfully familiar today.

This diagnosis does not explain everything about the abuse crisis, of course. It does not explain psychopaths like Marcial Maciel and Theodore McCarrick. It does not explain the abusive behavior by clergy and religious in pre-conciliar Ireland and Quebec. It does not explain the challenges the Church faces from clerical concubinage (and worse) in Africa today.

But Ratzinger’s epidemiology does address, pointedly, the sharp spike in clerical sexual abuse that began in the late 1960s and peaked in the 1980s, before the reforms of the priesthood and seminaries initiated by Pope John Paul II began to take hold.

As it happens, I have been making virtually the same argument since the publication of The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church in 2002. There, I suggested that the clerical self-deception and duplicity that accompanied widespread dissent from Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on family planning, Humanae Vitae, created an environment in which abusive sexual behavior intensified.

Men who persuaded themselves that they need not believe or teach what the Church professed to be true (especially about the ethics of human love) were especially vulnerable to the tidal wave of the sexual revolution; and in short order intellectual duplicity led to behavioral duplicity — and abuse.

That seminaries were in intellectual and disciplinary meltdown in this same period compounded the crisis. So did Rome’s failure to promote ecclesiastical discipline in the face of blatant dissent.

It was, in brief, a perfect storm, one in which the dark forces that are always trying to destroy the Church and impede its evangelical mission could wreak terrible damage.

For this analysis, I was duly bludgeoned by a portside Catholic commentariat that seemed locked into denial in 2002. Judging from the immediate, volatile, and sometime vicious responses to Ratzinger’s memorandum from the same quarters two weeks ago, too many on the Catholic Left remain in denial about the link between doctrinal and moral dissent and clerical wickedness. Thus, the Pope Emeritus was deemed senile by some, imprudent by others, and disloyal to his successor by the critics.

One of these frothing pundits (many of whom are progressive ultramontanists for whom Pope Francis’s infallibility is virtually boundless) even went so far as to charge Benedict with being, in effect, a schismatic.
- But did any of these critics engage Ratzinger’s argument? No.
- Did any of the critics offer a different, more plausible explanation for the spike in clerical sexual abuse that followed the penetration of the Church by the sexual revolution, the Humanae Vitae controversy, the breakdown of discipline in seminary formation, and the evolution of moral theologies that deconstructed the notion that some acts are always and everywhere wrong? No.
As in 2002, there was lots of vitriol; but no serious alternative diagnosis was offered.

And as I’ve noted before, “clericalism” is not a serious explanation for the sin and crime of clerical sexual abuse. Clericalism facilitates abuse, in that abusers prey on those who rightly hold the priesthood in esteem. But “clericalism” does not explain sexual predation, which has other, deeper causes and is in fact a global plague.

Former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both tweeted sympathies about "Easter worshippers" killed in Sri Lanka without mentioning Christians.

Do 'Easter worshippers' worship Easter??? Both Obama and Clinton claim to be Christians, but how Christian are they exactly?

About 'Easter worshippers':
Anything not to mention Christ or Christianity
by Dennis Prager

April 23, 2019


Sometimes, a few sentences tell you more about a person — and, more importantly, an ideology — than a learned thesis.

That is the case with tweets from Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama two days ago in response to the mass murder of more than 300 Christians and others in Sri Lanka.

Their tweets are worth serious analysis because they reveal a great deal about the left. Of course, they reveal a great deal about Clinton and Obama, too, but that doesn’t interest me.

And that, too, is important. Many Americans —especially conservatives and “independents” — are more interested in individual politicians than in political ideologies.

Many conservatives have long been fixated on Clinton — so much so that probably any other Democrat would have defeated Donald Trump, as conservative anger specifically toward her propelled many people to the polls.

Similarly, Republican Never-Trumpers are fixated on Trump rather than policy. They care more about Trump’s personal flaws than about the mortal dangers the left poses to America and the West or about the uniquely successful conservative policies Trump promulgates.

And independents all claim to vote “for the person, not the party.”

Only leftists understand that one must vote left no matter who the Democrat is, no matter who the Republican opponent is. Leftists are completely interchangeable: There is no ideological difference among the 20 or so Democrats running for president. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is not one degree to the right of Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

That is why it is important to understand Clinton and Obama’s tweets: to understand the left, not to understand her or him.

Here are the tweets: Obama- “The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”

Three hours later, Clinton tweeted: “On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.”

As they both spelled “worshipers” the same idiosyncratic way and used the term “Easter worshippers,” it is likely they either had the same writers or Clinton copied Obama.

Here’s what’s critical: Neither used the word “Christians.” And in order to avoid doing so, they went so far as to make up a new term— ”Easter worshippers” — heretofore unknown to any Christian.

When Jews were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Clinton mentioned the synagogue in a tweet. But in her post-Sri Lanka tweet, despite the bombing of three churches filled with Christians, Clinton made no mention of church or churches.

In a tweet after the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, she wrote that her heart broke for “the global Muslim community.” But in her latest tweet, not a word about Christians or the global Christian community.


Obama similarly wrote in his tweet about New Zealand that he was grieving with “the Muslim community” over the “horrible massacre in the Mosques.” But in his tweet about Sri Lanka, there is no mention of Christians or churches.

The reason neither of them mentioned Christians or churches is that the left has essentially forbidden mention of all the anti-Christian murders perpetrated by Muslims in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and of all the Muslim desecration of churches in Europe, Africa, and anywhere else.

This is part of the same phenomenon — that I and others have documented — of British police and politicians covering up six years of rape of 1,400 English girls by Muslim “grooming gangs” in Rotherham and elsewhere in England.

Essentially, the left’s rule is that nothing bad — no matter how true — may be said about Muslims or Islam and nothing good — no matter how true — may be said of Christians or Christianity. [With some modification of the part about Christians, since he often praises non-Catholic Christians, the reigning pope lives by this rule, dpesn't he?]

Clinton’s post-New Zealand tweet also included these words: “We must continue to fight the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all its forms. White supremacist terrorists must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped.”

She made sure to condemn “Islamophobia,” but she wrote not a word about the far more destructive and widespread hatred of Christians in the Muslim world, seen in Muslims’ virtual elimination of the Christian communities in the Middle East, the regular murder and kidnappings of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the murder of Christians in Nigeria. [All that to applies to Bergoglio! An ideological trinity of peas in a pod - Bergoglio-Obama-Clinton.]

She calls on “leaders everywhere” to condemn “white supremacist terrorists,” one of the smallest hate groups on Earth, but never calls on leaders everywhere to condemn Islamist terrorists, the largest hate group on Earth.

These two tweets tell you a lot about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But far more importantly, they tell you a lot about the left.

There's been comparatively little'excitement' on line in the past few days - after the Notre Dame fire and its immediate aftermath (little significant damage, thank God, except to the 800-year-old oaken roof) and the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, death toll last pegged at 320, with muted MSM commentary since ISIS laid claim to the massacre - and the surprising lack of reaction to the preview of the Bergoglian curial reform which will really overturn the Church's hierarchical structure inside out to institutionalize the church of Bergoglio within the temporal structure of the Church of Christ, although that, of course, is not the way he sees his absolutely proprietorial expropriation of the one true Church of Christ to himself. I cannot get over how he has used the pretext of 'curial reform' to institutionalize the radical changes he pre-announced in Evangelii gaudium.

And yet, I seem to be the only one reacting this way. Is it because the preview given us by Cardinals Maradiaga and Gracias is not yet official? What difference does it make? They have laid down the basic radical changes that will be in effect for a 25-year trial period from the time Bergoglio's Apostolic Constitution is promulgated on or around June 29. God knows how many more 'lesser' but equally outrageous changes the full document will tell us. If you are not outraged now about what we have been told so far, does it make you any virtuous to postpone the outrage until the document is formally promulgate?

So, absent any outcry so far, let me just pick up a few items that I feel ought to go on record these days. I start with how Fr. Hunwicke, Latinist that he is, caught the reigning pope mis-stating the Urbi et Orbi blessing last Easter from watching a video of the event. Apparently he was among all of the millions of Catholics had not bothered to watch Bergoglio's Easter performance at all. Z surely did not, as he became aware of Bergoglio's latin blooper - a big one to anyone who knows Latin - through Fr H's blogpost. Nor, apparently did the Latin-familiar anti-Bergoglio Vaticanista triad of Socci, Tosatti and Valli, or they would have unfailingly commented on it.

The latest liturgical innovation

April 26, 2019

The [last line of the] Blessing Urbi et Orbi by the Bishop Of Rome, this year, took the following (gracious, merciful and humble) form:

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Et benedictio Dei Omnipotentis, Patris, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, descendat super vos et maneat semper.

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[The correct formula is: Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper. (And may the blessing of Almighty God - the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit - come down on you and remain with you forever.]

Listen to it on Vatican TV if you don't believe me. And he had an enormous white book held open in front of him by some poor sweating flunkey.

For five years, PF's cronies have been assuring us that his every word and deed is by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Is he now claiming the infallible and Magisterial right to change, not only the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not only Denziger, but even Kennedy's Latin Primer?

Or does this highly sophisticated form of blessing somehow mysteriously imply tritheism?

Does a public manifestation of Trinitarian heterodoxy mean that he has finally lost the munus Petrinum?

Mormons are tritheists. Is PF a Mormon? Who are we to judge?...

No, I think it was simple illiteracy in Latin...Which I don't understand. Surely Jorge Bergoglio would have studied more Latin in seminary than Socci-Tosatti-Valli in thei required Latin courses in the Italian high schools they attended. Or did he?

Father Z comments, in the context of a broader ‘rant’ about the loss of Latin in the Roman (Latin) Church:

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At Easter, the Roman Pontiff shows up on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, gives a little talk and then imparts, with an indulgence, a blessing on the city and on the world. Nice. This is an old custom. It is intended for the whole world. So, the Roman Pontiff uses the Church’s official language: Latin.

But the Roman Pontiff, in front of the whole world, blows the Latin, even though he has a book in front of him. Fr. Hunwicke pointed this out. [The pope] chants: “Benedictio Dei Omnipotentis, Patris, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, descendat super vos et maneat semper.’

To one who has a bit of a Latin ear, that simply screams. This is a big deal. There’s nothing good about this…

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* [The correct formula for the Urbi et Orbi blessing is: “Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper.” (And may the blessing of Almighty God – (of) the Father, and (of) the Son, and (of) the Holy Spirit - come down on you and remain with you forever.) Fr H is saying that, as pronounced by Bergoglio last Easter, there are three separate ‘Gods’ invoked, instead of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

The form of the Urbi et Orbi blessing is similar to the words to the Sign of the Cross: “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti” – In the name of the Father, (of) the Son and (of) the Holy Spirit”, where all three nouns are declined in the genitive form. In contrast, in the Gloria, it is ”Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto” - Glory to the Father, (to) the Son, and (to) the Holy Spirit - where the nouns are declined in the dative form.

In Bergoglio’s self-improvised formulation, ‘the Son and the Holy Spirit’ are both nominative, which makes for a nonsensical hodgepodge, i.e., “May the blessing of Almighty God the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, come down on you and remain with you forever’.” Big deal, you might say, what difference does it make? It is the difference between right and wrong in terms of grammar, usage and ritual. Wrong grammar and wrong usage are unforgivable in this particular circumstance, but if a ritual formulation is wrong, the ritual becomes invalid. That is why it matters.]

Then, there are those statements made on TV by one of the McCarrick proteges who became instant Bergoglio pets:

A Cardinal on the ropes of logic

April 24, 2019

…There came to my attention a TV interview granted by His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Tobin, in the never-before-cardinalatial see of Newark, less than 17 miles and about a 45 minute drive from the digs of the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, across the river.

Card. Tobin did something remarkable in that TV interview:
When questioned by the woman from NBC’s Today Show, who implicitly attacked the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and manifestly got it wrong – she said the Church says that homosexuals are “intrinsically disordered”, which is not what the Church teaches – Card. Tobin did not correct her error. Card. Tobin did not defend what the Church actually teaches in a way that even someone from NBC can understand… with the help of repetitions and words of few syllables.

NB: The Church says that the inclination is intrinsically disordered.

Instead, Card. Tobin said – and I’m not making this up….

---

TOBIN: “The Church, I think, is having its own conversation about what our faith has us do and say with people in relationships that are same-sex. What should be without debate is that we are called to welcome them.”

NBC: “But how can you welcome people that you call ‘intrinsically disordered?’”

TOBIN: “Well I don’t call them ‘intrinsically disordered.’”

NBC: “But isn’t that the Catechism of the Catholic Church?”

TOBIN: “That is… it’s very unfortunate language. Let’s hope that eventually that language is a little less hurtful.”

---

“… a little less hurtful”.

So, Tobin did not correct her mischaracterization. He distanced himself from language used in the CCC, though she had gotten it wrong. But what is the real problem with what he said? Follow the logic.

He suggests that, through some sort of “conversation”, whatever that is, the language used to describe who homosexuals are and what they do will be “a little less hurtful”. Think about that. Less hurtful is still hurtful.

How much “hurtful” is an acceptable level of pain? How much less hurtful is within acceptable parameters?

Once you accept the MSM and modernist and secularist and homosexualist and Jesuit position that the Church’s teaching (language = teaching) is “hurtful”, then you are on the ropes of logic. You have no where to go but to acquiesce to their desire to force the Church to deny her teaching and to jettison natural law and divine revelation as a foundation for morals.

You wind up like Peter, warming himself at the fire in the MSM’s courtyard while the Truth incarnate is on trial. When challenged about the Truth, he caved.

Charity is more important than being “less hurtful”. Charity involves the truth for the sake of the true good of others. That may require discomfort, even danger and self-sacrifice. It may involve not simply accepting the position of the MSM and the Jesuit homosexualists and the Fishwrap and others who hate the Faith. It may involve not being popular and safe and adored by the world.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/04/2019 08:11]

There is still a news doldrum insofar as major Church news is concerned, but over the weekend, something major did occur, IMHO, which even Catholic news junkies may have considered 'minor', but nonetheless constitutes another landmark in Jorge Bergoglio's systematic degradation of Catholicism as we know it and overall cheapening to meaninglessness of the Church's sanctification process.

The beatification of 'Satanelli',
patron of Communist terrorists and
victims of questionable road accidents

April 28, 2019

Something unbelievable happened today in Argentina: along with three other locals, Enrique Angelelli, Bishop of La Rioja, who died in a car crash in 1976, was "beatified as a martyr"...

Well-known Spanish Catholic pundit Luis Fernando Pérez Bustamante, made the following comment:

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An infamous day in the history of the Church. A bishop close to the terrorist 'Montonero' movement will be 'beatified' as a martyr.

Such an insult to the memory of true Martyrs cannot and must not remain unpunished.

It is hard for a Pope to fall this low.

In fact, this Pontificate is summed up perfectly with this beatification. It is the absolute opposite of true holiness, true Tradition, to the Catholic ethos, to moral, doctrinal, and spiritual decency.

---

Last year, in fact, Rorate caeli was one of the few Catholic outlets in English who took note and protested Bergoglio's proclamation of 'Satanelli' last year as a martyr for dying in a road accident that the Argentine courts had initially declared to be a the outcome of a mechanical car failure that was not 'set up' by anyone. Imagine the thousands of Catholics who have died that way and therefore ought to be mass-beatified as martyrs by Bergoglio! Here are two of the items I posted in this forum last year protesting the Satanelli 'beatification'.






A reaction yesterday from Fr. Michael Orsi, chaplain of the Ave Maria University School of Law in Naples, Florida:


There really have been two other news items of interest this weekend, if you will pardon my use
of canon212.com's headlines:



The Bergoglio-Maradiaga-Soros tie-up to promote US obrder-invading caravans is certainly very plausible, and
the pope did make a hefty contribution to those intending transgressors of US immigration law. And appointing
a onetime KPMG auditor to succeed Cardinal Pell as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Economy is certainly
a signature Bergoglio move (stunt?) to appoint a woman to the highest position he can possibly think of
in the Church hierarchy that will admit a lay appointment.

Phil Lawler has a valid objection to the proposed superdicastery for evangelization in the forthcoming Bergoglio Constitution to 'reform' the Roman Curia, a word that masks what he is really attempting, namely, to institutionalize his systematic overturning of almost everything important in the Roman Catholic Church as it had been until that cursed day of March 13, 2013. His point is that evangelization is a mission for the entire Church, not just a Curial task.

Why a ‘superdicastery’ for evangelization
is not a good idea
By Phil Lawler

April 26, 2019

After six years and 29 working sessions (each stretching across three days), the Council of Cardinals is finally ready to unveil its plan for reorganizing the Roman Curia. A preview report, based on interviews with two of the cardinals on the Pope’s advisory committee, the new plan features a “superdicastery” devoted to evangelization.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the chairman of the Council of Cardinals, explains that Pope Francis wants to underline the primary duty of the Church: to evangelize. “For this reason,” he says, “it’s logical that we put in the first place the dicastery for evangelization and not the one for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

But wait a minute. If you look at the structure of the Roman Curia today, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) does not hold the “first place” among the offices of the Vatican. The CDF is the oldest of the offices in the Roman Curia, and its history (as the Inquisition and later the Holy Office) is the stuff of legends, but the “superdicastery” today is the Secretariat of State. And at least to date, no one has suggested that situation will be changed by Praedicate Evangelium, the proposed apostolic constitution that is now being circulated among Church leaders for comments and suggestions.

In the US government, the Secretary of State is charged with the conduct of foreign affairs. At the Vatican, however, the office is more like that of a prime minister. Yes, the Secretariat of State handles relations with the world’s governments, through the offices of apostolic nuncios and other Vatican diplomats. But that function is assigned, significantly, to the “Second Section” of the Secretariat of State. The First Section has a broader mandate (as set forth in Pastor Bonus, the apostolic constitution currently governing the Curia) “to expedite the business concerning the daily service of the Supreme Pontiff…” This section is headed by the sostituto, a prelate who coordinates all the paperwork that flows through the Vatican bureaucracy.

Anyone who knows how the Vatican operates today recognizes the Secretariat of State as the “superdicastery.” I recall having a cup of coffee with a Vatican official, who spoke about how all his efforts were dependent on “what they decide” — as he nodded his head toward the offices of the Secretariat of State.

Another official, the head of a less prestigious dicastery, recounted how he had been charged with setting up a working group to handle a particular question. After a few meetings he noticed that attendance was slipping. Only later did he learn that the Secretary of State had formed his own committee to handle the same question, and everyone implicitly understood that the original group was now irrelevant.

In the past I have argued that the overweening power of the Secretariat of State is an obstacle to Vatican reform. Because of its twofold role — dealing simultaneously with the pressures imposed by secular governments and the internal business of the Church — the office is subject to conflicting pressures.

Moreover it is traditionally staffed by Vatican diplomats, who are trained to avoid conflict, whereas Catholic bishops are, or should be, willing to speak boldly and forthrightly. “Aren’t there inherent risks involved,” I have asked, “in giving career diplomats the authority to influence the Vatican offices that supervise the selection of bishops, the evangelization of mission territories, the training of clerics, and even the teaching of Catholic doctrine?”

If the CDF were the “superdicastery,” we would have some assurance that all Vatican policies would be guided by an overriding concern for doctrinal clarity. [It certainly was La Suprema in the Roman Curia under John Paul II, when by consensus - propagated even by the media who detested him - Cardinal Ratzinger was considered the second most powerful man in the Vatican after the pope. Not because he wielded power in any temporal sense, but because John Paul II admitted, in asking him to come to Rome to head the CDF, that he needed someone beside him who would strengthen and defend the bulwarks of the faith. At that time, Cardinal Sodano, though a very powerful Secretary of State - one who was able for a time to override Cardinal Ratzinger and the pope himself on the matter of Marcial Maciel - was never considered the Vatican's #2 man.]

Unfortunately, for the last few years the CDF has clearly been left out of the discussions preceding important policy decisions. Pope Francis tells us that evangelizing — preaching the faith — is our top priority. And so it is. But what exactly is this faith that we preach? Clarity in doctrine is not an obstacle to evangelization; it is a necessary condition for spreading the Gospel message. [But Mr. Lawler, the Gospel message itself is the doctrine that the CDF - and the Pope - are dutybound to uphold in its entirety and according to the interpretations that the Church has transmitted from apostolic times to the present. A transmission however which the reigning pope has simply chosen to cut off.]

Yet I have another, more pressing reason for questioning the wisdom of establishing a “superdicastery” devoted to evangelization. The work of spreading the faith, of bringing people to Christ, is ordinarily not the work of an office or institution.

It is one-on-one work, done by individuals: by missionaries, by parish priests, and above all by lay people—by parents teaching their children, by friends talking to friends, by loyal Catholics bearing public witness to their faith. Pope Francis has called for a decentralization of Church governance, and evangelization is the ultimate field for decentralized activity. All baptized Christians are commissioned to evangelize. It is our work, not the work of an office in Rome.

What is it, exactly, that a dicastery for evangelization would accomplish? Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI spoke frequently about the need for a “new evangelization” — a drive to restore the health of Christianity in the societies of Europe and North America, where the faith, once dominant, has now sunk into desuetude.

In 2010 Pope Benedict established the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization to supervise that campaign. It seemed like a good idea, but unfortunately that dicastery has become an office in search of a mission; its most conspicuous activities have been coordinating pilgrimages and other “set pieces” of pious devotion — worthy efforts, to be sure, but not novel approaches to evangelization. Meanwhile, in Europe and North America, the secularizing trend has accelerated.

Evangelization is the mission of the entire Church. The offices of the Roman Curia have a more specific mission: to assist the Holy Father in his work, promoting and ensuring the unity and integrity of the faith. [It seems that in Bergoglio's new Constitution,the pope does not need the Roman Curia - that their primary purpose is to serve the needs of local bishops [which is how the Curia has always helped the pope, so what's new about that?, but at the same time, Bergoglio is giving bishops a 'superior' position in the hierarchy with respect to the heads of Roman Curial offices, so theoretically, no Curial official would be able to enforce any decree on any local diocese whose bishop is uncooperative. But what am I saying? Under the Bergoglio Constitution, there would no longer be a universal Church,as each bishop also has doctrinal autonomy. Think the German Church multipled 5000 times around the world!]

The must-read commentary from this weekend:


Will Sri Lanka be a wake-up call for the West?
Church leaders have rightly condemned white supremacists, but seem to ignore
that Islam is, historically and ideologically, a supremacist religion.
by William Kilpatrick

April 28, 2019

I haven’t yet seen [the film] Hotel Mumbai, but I was surprised to learn of its release last month. The surprise was on two counts: first, that anyone had dared to make a movie that depicts Muslims as terrorists, and, second, that the terrorists hadn’t been transformed, for politically correct reasons, into white supremacists from rural Virginia.

The story certainly merits big-screen treatment. In November 2008, ten heavily armed members of an Islamic terrorist organization laid siege for four days to the city of Mumbai. Their most iconic target was the majestic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel which could be seen on televised news reports with smoke billowing from its upper floors. Altogether, 164 people were killed and 300 wounded.

I remember thinking at the time that Mumbai would be a turning point. People would finally wake up and take decisive action to counter the ideology that led to the carnage in India’s largest city. But I had thought the same thing after the London tube and bus bombings (2005), the bombings of four commuter trains in Madrid (2004), the attack on an elementary school in Beslan, Russia which left more than 330 dead (2004), and, of course, after 9/11.

But here we are, eleven years after Mumbai, eighteen years after 9/11 and 35,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks in-between, and I don’t think we’ve made any progress in understanding the threat. And that’s the optimistic assessment. The truth is, we’re not simply back where we were in 2001. We’ve actually regressed.

Today’s average college graduate has a poorer understanding of the enemy we face than his counterpart of eighteen years ago. The ‘woke’ generation is alert to every variety of “microaggression,” but it seems oblivious to the most macro aggressive force on the planet.

That’s because the politically correct crowd have now gained a much tighter control of the narrative.
- In the early days of the “war on terror,” it was still permissible to say that our terrorist enemies were inspired by the more radical teachings of the prophet Muhammad.
- The forces of obfuscation had not yet shifted into high gear, and the term “Islamophobia” had not yet been turned into a club with which to beat Islamosceptics into submission.
- Although President Bush assured us that Islam is a religion of peace, it didn’t seem so to many in America at the time. Indeed, Islam looked to be an aggressive religion, and it was still possible to say so without fear of being denied a public platform or of losing one’s job.

Since then, the narrative has shifted nearly 180 degrees. - “Islamophobia,” which initially seemed nothing more than a PR ploy, is now an ironclad doctrine.
- The slightest criticism of Islam brings swift retribution.
When a guest on Fox News began to speculate that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral might have been purposefully set, he was immediately shut down by host Shepard Smith.

Likewise, when Catholic League president Bill Donahue began to speculate in the same direction, Neil Cavuto abruptly cut him off. The religion that must not be named [in any negative context] is now setting the parameters of public discourse.

In the days immediately following 9/11, Muslims were suspected of being aggressors, but they are now defended as victims — of Islamophobia, hate crimes, discrimination and worse.

This narrative was bolstered on March 15 when a deranged white supremacist killed 50 Muslims in two mosques in New Zealand. From the month-long worldwide coverage, one would think that this was simply the worst example of a long campaign against mosques that must now finally be brought to an end. But that is not the case.
- Attacks on mosques by non-Muslims are a rarity. [When did we even hear of one, before the New Zealand insanity?]
- The New Zealand attack was essentially a one-off, not part of a pattern.

Meanwhile, a very obvious pattern of attacks on Christian churches by Muslims had been unfolding for years. But, by and large, the media refused to look at it.
- The media has given only minimal attention to the hundreds of attacks on Christian churches in recent years in Nigeria, Egypt and elsewhere.
- Nor has it paid much attention to the hundreds of churches that have been vandalized, desecrated and torched in France alone in the last year.
- It wasn’t until the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral that most Americans first learned of the string of attacks on French churches. And even then, they had to pay close attention.
It was a brief mention of these church desecrations which caused Neil Cavuto to hang up on Bill Donahue lest viewers learn too much.

Of course, some Muslim attacks on Christians are so blatant that even the mainstream media can’t ignore them. But they can downplay them. Such is the case with the horrific attacks on three Christian churches, and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday by Muslim terrorists.
- As a number of columnists have observed, the mainstream media dragged a basketful of red herrings across the story in an effort to throw readers off the scent.
- Mark Steyn points out that the lead sentence in The Economist was: 'It has been nearly ten years since the guns fell silent in Sri Lanka’s civil war. But bloodshed returned with a vengeance…'
- A number of other news reports began with the same lead. If you didn’t read beyond the lead, you’d think, “It’s those darned Tamil Tigers again. Haven’t they done enough damage?”

In the meantime, several presidential candidates didn’t think the story of hundreds of Christians being killed in church was worth mentioning at all.
- The day after the bombings, CNN hosted a Town Hall for five Democrat candidates. Not a single one mentioned the horrific attacks.
- Nor did the CNN anchors see fit to even raise the question. Jihad terror against Christians is, apparently, not a big issue for Democrats or for CNN.

[Kilpatrick egregiously fails to mention here the simultaneous description of the church victims in Sri Lanka as 'Easter worshippers' by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton in their supposedly 'sympathetic' tweets. The Democrats have coined a fatuous neologism just to avoid saying 'Christians', which has now become, for them, in the equally fatuous jargon of the day, 'the C-word' (along with Christ, from which the word derives), lest they commit the ultimate secular transgression these days, political incorrectness. Yet in their political campaigns, neither Obama nor Clinton failed to tout their 'Christianity', something which they will now keep silent about because it is politically incorrect to ever mention it unless it is to demean it.]

What will it take to wake up people to the gravity and extent of the jihad threat? Will it take a more massive attack on the scale of Mumbai? More devastating attacks on churches and hotels like the ones that occurred last week in Sri Lanka? Or will it take another 9/11 — only this time on a larger scale with even more loss of life?

We assume, of course, that at some point everyone will wake up, and decisive action will be taken. But that’s not necessarily so. For some — in press rooms, in broadcast studios, in universities, and in government — it may well be that nothing will wake them up.

In what Samuel Huntington called “the clash of civilizations,” many have, in effect, already chosen sides.
- Their automatic defense of Islam is part of a worldview that is based on fear or dislike of Christianity and the West, and faith in diversity.
- They are so committed to this narrative that no evidence to the contrary will shake their faith.
- They may see some problems with Islam, but, like Walter Duranty, the New York Times correspondent who covered-up Stalin’s forced starvation of millions in Ukraine, they are willing to tell lies for the sake of an illusory future harmony.

If you wait for the mainstream media to wake up, you might be waiting for a long time. But where else shall we turn for guidance? There are some world leaders who seem to grasp the situation: Victor Orban, Sebastian Kurz, Matteo Salvini, Donald Trump, and others. But they are a minority.

Many other world leaders, by contrast, seem clueless about Islam. They continue to implement policies — such as increased immigration — that will lead to the death of their own cultures.

In times past, people could look to the Catholic Church for guidance regarding Islam. But not anymore.
- Amazingly, jihad terror seems to be a secondary issue for the Church.
- Even though the Church is one of the jihadists’ main targets, the bishops’ radar is focused elsewhere — on climate change, on the needs of the LGBT community, and, ironically, on “Islamophobia.”
- Indeed, some Church leaders are intent on portraying Islam as a beleaguered fellow faith.
- Many seem more interested in defending Islam from criticism than in defending Christians from violent attacks.
- Thus, key members of the hierarchy have consistently maintained that attacks carried out in the name of Allah have nothing to do with Islam, and Pope Francis has drawn a moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity on more than one occasion.

This policy betrays either a deep ignorance of Islam, or else a willingness to conceal the truth.
- If Church authorities are lying, they undoubtedly justify it to themselves as a ‘noble lie’ — a lie told for the benefit of others.
- Perhaps, they fear that the truth might provoke a “backlash” against Muslims which would set in motion a cycle of violence.
- Perhaps they hope to create a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby Muslims come to believe all the positive things said about their faith, and strive to act accordingly.
- Or, perhaps, Church leaders fear that a frank discussion of Islam would only provoke more Islamic violence against Christians.

Whatever the reasons, the strategy of prevarication is not working. Church authorities continue to praise Islam as a religion of peace and justice, and Arab leaders applaud the pope for his defense of Islam, yet Muslim attacks on Christians keep escalating. And not just in Iran, Nigeria, Egypt, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, but also in Europe.

Meanwhile, the odds for the backlash which secular and Church leaders fear, are increasing. As it becomes more apparent that Church leaders won’t tell the truth about the threat, and that the state won’t protect them, more people will, unfortunately, be tempted to take matters into their own hands.
- The point is, the current head-in-the-sand approach of pretending (or actually believing) that jihad has nothing to do with Islam, only serves to fuel the jihad.
- The repeated assurance that jihadists are a tiny minority who misunderstand their religion only guarantees that Christians will be unprepared for the next attack. They were certainly unprepared in Sri Lanka.

As the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith said: “It’s very difficult and a very sad situation for all of us because we never expected such a thing to happen and especially on Easter Sunday.”

Especially not on Easter Sunday? If the archbishop was acquainted with the activities of jihadists, he would know that they prefer to attack churches on Christian holy days such as Easter, Palm Sunday, and Christmas, and he might have taken precautions. But in the current climate, simply taking precautions might be seen as an act of distrust toward one’s Muslim neighbors.

As Robert Spencer asks in a recent article, “Would it have been Islamophobic to have Sri Lankan churches guarded for Easter?”
- The doctrine of jihad — the belief that Muslims have a religious obligation to fight unbelievers — is subscribed to by a significant percentage of Muslims worldwide.
- It is solidly based in the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sira.
- Moreover, it is rooted in Islamic history.

The history of Islam — a history with which today’s non-Muslims are mostly unfamiliar — is largely a history of jihad. By one estimate, up to 80 million people in India alone lost their lives to jihad over the centuries.

Considering Sri Lanka’s close proximity to India, it might be expected that the Archbishop of Colombo would know some of this history. But the Archbishop does not seem to be the inquiring type. Three days after the attack, he met with several Islamic ambassadors who assured him, he said, that the bombings had “no connection to Islam.” [It was certainly incredible to me, and very disappointing, that Cardinal Ranjith said that - since he is certainly intelligent enough to know that such an 'assurance' means nothing (it's not as if jihadists had at any time first consulted their country's ambassador before going out to kill!)]

Church leaders have rightly condemned white supremacists, but seem not to have noticed that Islam is a supremacist religion which considers Muslims “the best of people” (Koran 3: 110), and non-believers, “the worst of creatures" (98: 6). Unbelievers are also “unclean” (9: 28), “ignorant” (6: 111). “helpers of the devil” (4: 76), like “cattle” (7: 179), and, in the case of Jews who displeased Allah, “transformed into apes and swine” (5: 60).

Meanwhile, Islamic law books which are available on Amazon, and widely consulted for guidance, assert that the value of a Christian or Jew is one-third the value of a Muslim.

Since the same law books, together with the Koran, present jihad as the best deed a Muslim can perform after belief in Allah and Muhammad, it should come as no surprise that jihad attacks are so frequent and widespread. There is even less reason to be surprised when we consider that jihadists are guaranteed immediate entrance to paradise and the company of 72 virgins.

Yet, like the Archbishop of Colombo, people continue to be surprised. But, of course, archbishops and cardinals have less reason to be surprised than most. After all, religion is their territory.

At some future point — perhaps in as few as fifteen or twenty years — subjugated Christians in Europe and other parts of the Western world will wonder why no one had given them warning. Why, they will ask, hadn’t previous generations learned the lessons provided by Mumbai, Madrid, London, Beslan, New York, Orlando, Paris, Nice, Brussels, Bali, Nigeria, Egypt and Sri Lanka?

Catholics, especially, will wonder why their shepherds had felt no obligation to inform them.

William Kilpatrick taught for many years at Boston College. He is the author of several books about cultural and religious issues. His articles on Islam have appeared in Aleteia, National Catholic Register, Investor’s Business Daily, FrontPage Magazine, and other publications.

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April 29

Third from left: The Mystical Marriage of Catherine, Giovanni da Paolo, 1470; third from right, the head of St. Catherine in Siena's Basilica di San Domenico.
ST. CATERINA DA SIENA (Italy, 1347-1380), Virgin, Dominican lay sister, Mystic, Doctor of the Church

Caterina Benincasa was born the 23rd child of a Tuscan wool merchant, with a twin sister who died in infancy. At age 6, she told about seeing Jesus in a vision,
the first of her lifelong mystical experiences, and at age 7, she vowed herself to chastity. Despite pressure from her family to marry, she joined the Dominican
Third Order and lived the next three years of her life in seclusion but through her letters encouraging others in their spiritual life, she gathered an active apostolate
around her. Her self-mortification to the extreme was well-known, and towards the end of her life, lived only on Communion. Early on, she started to wear a steel
chain around her waist, with which she would beat herself three times a day, once for Christ, once for the living, and once for the dead. In 1366, she told her
confessor she had entered into a 'mystical marriage' with Christ, who urged her to leave her private life and work in public. With her sister Dominicans, she
travelled through the region advocating clergy reform and spiritual renewal, where she also gained renown for performing miracles of healing. She became
interested in public affairs and started to exchange letters with public figures, including, famously, two Popes. (Her expression 'dolce Cristo in terra' for the Pope
has become immortal, and was particularly dear to San Jose Maria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei). When the Great Western Schism began in 1378 that led to
two and sometimes even three rival Popes at a time, she travelled to Avignon and convinced Gregory VI to return to Rome. When he died, she supported the
cause of his successor Urban VI and went to Rome at his invitation to serve at the Vatican. She died at the age of 33, ostensibly from failure to eat. More than
300 of her letters survive, along with her main work, The Dialogues of Divine Providence, in which she recreates her own conversations with God. In 1375,
she is believed to have received the stigmata in Pisa, but these only became visible on her death. Her remains are venerated in the Church of Santa Minerva in
Rome, but about ten years after she died, her native city of Siena was able to take possession of her incorrupt head, and when it came home to Siena, her own
mother was still alive to take part in the procession that installed the relic in the Basilica of San Domenico. The Benincasa house in Siena was kept intact and
is now a shrine to the saint. In 1939, Pius XII declared her and St. Francis of Assisi as co-patrons of Italy; in 1970, Paul VI proclaimed her and St. Teresa of Avila
as the first woman Doctors of the Church, and in 1999, John Paul II made her one of the Patrons of Europe.

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Antonio Socci offers this helpful reminders from the saint of the day, Caterina da Siena, Doctor of the Church and Co-Patron of Europe...
I do not think she is in any way among the favorite saints of the reigning pope

The example of Catherine of Siena
Translated from

April 29, 2019

In remembrance of St. Catherine today, I would like to underscore that this extraordinary girl – who was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, Patron of Italy and of Rome, and Co-Patron of Europe – was simply Caterina Benincasa when she wrote the letters I am quoting from below (but one who walked on foot, even all the way to Avignon, in her efforts to bring back the popes to Rome and save the Church). She was a 20-year-old girl, uneducated outside the home, a laywoman who belonged to the Dominican Third Order.

To her friends, she used to say: “Do not be satisfied with smallness. God wants you to be great. If you could be who you are supposed to be, you could set Italy on fire!”

God himself spoke to the mystic Maria Valtorta about Catherine of Siena, in a message he intended for Pius XII: “Other predecessors of yours listened to those whom I used as means to communicate, and if the Church is still Roman, it is because a pope yielded to the pleas of Catherine”.

Therefore, as we admire the faith, the charity and the courage of Catherine, we must also admire the humility of the popes, bishops and cardinals who – despite their immersion in corrupt customs – knew enough to listen to the vehement appeals of a young girl, recognizing in her voice the will of God himself.

That was a disgraceful epoch when the Pastors of the Church could not recognize the guidance of the Holy Spirit and if they did, they did not want to follow, choosing instead to obey the power of worldly ideologies. Here are some of the most ardent words from Catherine that changed the history of the Church:

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“I, Catherine, servant and slave of Jesus Christ, write you in His Most Precious Blood, with the desire to see you well based in the true light…

It is time for you to sheathe your dagger, to loathe vice in yourself and in your subjects, and in the ministers of the Holy Church. I say this to you because in this life, no one is without sin: and charity should first move by itself, it must be used first on oneself for the sake of virtue, and for our neighbor.

Therefore, cut out vice; and if the heart of the creature cannot change, nor his defects removed, but only have what God brings him, and unless the creature tries, while listening to God, to draw out the poison of vice, then at the very least, Holy Father, let their disordered lives and sinful ways and customs be taken away from you…

And so, if I seem to say too much and too presumptuously, let my pain and my love excuse me before God and before yourself. Because wherever I turn, I have no place to rest my head on. If I wish this (that wherever Christ is, there is eternal life) and I see that you, who are Christ on earth, see the hell of many iniquities, with the poison of self-love... then let your heart show the flower of holy justice, without any fear ".
- Letter to Pope Urban VI

“…Only by passing through the crucible will you be what you ought to be, the sweet Vicar of Christ on earth!... Therefore, do everything that is in your power to do, as long as you do not act according to the will of men rather than the will of God who asks nothing more, for which reason he has placed you in your supreme vicariate… But you need the help of the Crucified Jesus Christ, and with you, those of the bishops called to advise you, among whom, however, many are corrupt and are not even fervent priests – free yourselves of these men, place your holy wishes in Jesus Christ alone, repudiate the delights from the rot of corruption, distinguish yourself from them.

If you [the ministers of Christ] do not know how to suffer, then you are unworthy. You represent the sweet Christ Jesus, and like Him you must only desire the good of souls, you must drink the cup of bitterness, you must take the gall yourself. How blessed your soul will be and mine to see you are the one who would initiate so much goodness."
-Letter to Gregory VI

“Open your eyes and see the perversity of death that has come upon the world, and singularly in the Body of the Holy Church. Let your hearts and souls burst to see so many offenses against God!... Alas, enough with keeping silent. Cry out in a hundred thousand tongues. I have seen that by keeping silent, the world has become rotten, and the Bride of Christ has been exsanguinated”.
– Letter to an important prelate

“If I were you, I would be afraid for divine justice to fall on me”.
- Letter to Gregory XI

'Therefore follow those true pastors who follow the Crucified Christ”.
- Letter to her followers

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The quotations from St. Catherine are my translations of the Italian. All her letters in English translation can be found online
laity.stdombenicia.org/cathletters.pdf
but I did not have the time to look up the passages chosen by Socci. Remarkably, we are told she only learned to write about three years before her death.
She dictated her letters and her texts to trusted secretaries.

Looking back now to Benedict XVI's catechesis on Caterina da Siena in 2010...






GENERAL AUDIENCE
Catechesis on St. Caterina of Siena
Nov. 24, 2010

The Holy Father devoted his catechesis today to St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church and Co-Patron of Europe.


Here is a full translation of the catechesis:

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Today I wish to speak to you of a woman who had an eminent role in the history of the Church - St. Caterina of Siena. The century in which she lived - the 14th - was a tormented era for the life of the Church and the entire social fabric of Italy and Europe.

Nonetheless, even in the moment of greatest difficulty, the Lord does not cease blessing his people, inspiring men and women saints who are able to shake minds and hearts, provoking conversion and renewal.

Caterina is one of them, and even today, she speaks to us and sustains us in walking with courage towards holiness in order to be increasingly better disciples of the Lord.

Born in Siena in 1347, to a very large family, she died in Rome in 1380. At the age of 16, urged by a vision of St. Dominic, she entered the third Dominican order, into its female branch called the Mantellate (Cloaked Ones).

Continuing to live with her family, she confirmed the vow of virginity that she had privately made when she was an adolescent. She dedicated herself to prayer, penitence, and works of charity, particularly in behalf of sick people.

When the fame of her holiness became widespread, she was the protagonist of an intense activity of spiritual advice for every category of persons: nobles and political men, artists and the common folk, consecrated persons, ecclesiastics, including Pope Gregory XI, who lived at that time in Avignon, and whom Caterina exhorted energetically and effectively to return to Rome.

She travelled a lot to campaign for internal reform in the Church and to promote peace among States. For this reason, the Venerable John Paul II declared her Co-Patron of Europe - that the Old Continent may never forget the Christian roots that are the basis of her journey, and may continue to draw from the Gospel those fundamental values that assure justice and concord.

Caterina suffered much, as many saints do. There were some who distrusted her so much that in 1374, six years before her death, the Chapter General of the Dominican order called her to Florence for interrogation. That brought her in touch with an educated and humble friar, Raimondo da Capua, future master-General of the order.

He became her confessor and her 'spiritual son', and he would write the first complete biography of the saint, who was canonized in 1461.

Caterina learned to read with difficulty and only learned to write as an adult. Her teaching is contained in the Dialogo della Divina Provvidenza, also called the Book of Divine Doctrine, a masterwork of spiritual literature; in her Epistolary, and in a collection of prayers.

Her teaching is endowed with such richness that the Servant of God, Paul VI, declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1970, a title added to that of co-Patron of Rome, as declared by Pius XI, and Patron of Italy, by the Venerable Pius XII.

In a vision that would never be erased from Caterina's mind and heart, Our Lady presented her to Jesus, who gave her a splendid ring, saying: "I, your Creator and Savior, wed you in the faith, that you will conserve pure until you celebrate our eternal marriage with me in heaven" (Raimondo da Capua, S. Caterina da Siena, Legenda maior, n. 115, Siena 1998).

That ring was visible only to her. In this extraordinary episode, we can grasp the vital center of Caterina's religiosity and that of every authentic spirituality: Christocentrism. Christ was for her as a spouse with whom there is a relationship of intimacy, of communion and of fidelity - he is the well-beloved above all others.

This profound union with the Lord is illustrated by another episode in the life of this distinguished mystic: the exchange of hearts. According to Raimondo da Capua, who transmitted the confidences he received from Caterina, the Lord Jesus appeared to her with a shining red heart in his hand, opened her breast, and put the heart in, saying: "Dearest daughter, since the other day I took the heart that you offered me, I give you my own, and from now on, it will be in the place that your heart was" (ibid.) Caterina truly lived the words of St. Paul: "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2,20).

Like the Sienese saint, every believer feels the need to be formed according to the sentiments of the Heart of Christ in order to love God and neighbor as Christ himself loves. And we all can allow our hearts to be transformed and to learn to love like Christ, in a familiarity with him that is nourished by prayer, by meditation on the Word of God, and by the Sacraments, especially by frequently receiving Holy Communion with devotion. For Caterina too belongs to the ranks of Eucharistic saints with which I concluded my Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (cfr No. 94).

Dear brothers and sisters, the Eucharist is an extraordinary gift of God's love that renews us continually in our journey of faith, reinvigorates our hope, and inflames our charity, to make us ever more like him.

Around a personality as strong and authentic as Caterina, there came to be a true and proper spiritual family. They were persons fascinated by the moral authority of this young woman with such an exalted way of life, and sometimes, also impressed by the mystical phenomena that they witnessed, such as her frequent ecstasies.

Many placed themselves at her service, and above all, considered it a privilege to be spiritually guided by Caterina. They called her 'Mamma', since as spiritual children, they drew nourishment for the spirit from her.

Even today, the Church receives great good from the exercise of maternal spirituality by so many women, consecrated and lay, who nourish in other souls the thought of God, strengthen the faith of people, and orient Christian life towards ever higher peaks.

"Children I say to you and I call you," Caterina writes to one of her spiritual children, the Carthusian monk Giovanni Sabatini, "in that I give birth to you for continuous prayer and desire for the presence of God, just as a mother bears her children" (Epistolario, Lettera n. 141: A don Giovanni de' Sabbatini).

She used to address the Dominican friar Bartolomeo da Dominici, with the words "Dearest brother and son in Christ our sweet Jesus".

Another feature of Caterina's spirituality is tied to her gift of tears. They express exquisite and profound sensitivity, a capacity for emotion and tenderness. Not a few saints have had the gift of tears, renewing the emotion of Jesus himself, who never kept back tears nor hid them, as when he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, at the sorrow of Mary and Martha, and at the sight of Jerusalem in his last days on earth.

According to Caterina, the tears of saints are mixed with the Blood of Christ, of which she spoke in vibrant tones and with very effective symbolic images: "Think of Christ crucified, God and man... Make the crucified Christ your object of meditation, hide yourself in the wounds of the crucified Christ, drown in the blood of the crucified Christ" (Epistolario, Lettera n. 16: Ad uno il cui nome si tace).

Here we can understand why Caterina, though aware of the human deficiencies of priests, always had a great reverence for them - they dispense, through the Sacraments and and the Word, the salvific power of the Blood of Christ.

The Sienese saint always invited consecrated ministers, even the Pope, whom she called 'dolce Cristo in terra', to be faithful to their responsibilities, motivated always and only by profound and constant love for the Church.

Before dying she said: "Leaving my body, I, in fact, consumed and gave my life in the Church and for the Holy Church, which for me was a most singular grace" (Raimondo da Capua, S. Caterina da Siena, Legenda maior, n. 363).

Thus, from St. Caterina we learn the most sublime science: to know and love Jesus Christ and his Church. In the Dialog of Divine Providence, she, using a singular image, describes Christ as a bridge between heaven and earth. It has three steps made up of the feet, the rib cage and the mouth of Jesus.

Ascending through these steps, the soul goes through the three stages of every life of sanctification: detachment from sin, practice of virtue and love, and affectionate union with God.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn from Santa Caterina to love Christ and the Church with courage, intensely and sincerely. Therefore, let us adopt the words of Santa Caterina that we read in the Dialog of Divine Providence. at the conclusion of the chapter that speaks of Christ as bridge: "Out of mercy you washed us in Blood. Out of mercy, you have wanted to speak to your creatures. Oh Fool for love, it was not enough for you to be incarnated, you also wished to die!... Oh mercy! My heart drowns thinking of you: that wherever I think to look, I find only mercy" (cap. 30, pp. 79-80). Grazie.

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If one penny of Peter's Pence under this pope has yet gone to help persecuted Christians anywhere in the globe, it is certainly worth a month's Sunday of headlines to note that the Vatican has never
said so at all - yet all this hype about helping undocumented would-be immigrants to break the law. No, I don't think the pope remembers Jesus ever said 'Render unto Caesar...'

The ever-militant Elizabeth Yore, human rights activist lawyer and fiercely orthodox Catholic, had a prompt reaction to Bergoglio's reported largesse towards illegal Hondurans
seeking to enter the USA by hook or by Peter's crook...

PETER’S PENCE, SOROS’S PENCE:
Pope to Give $500,000 to illegal immigrants
by Elizabeth Yore

April 28, 2019

DrudgeReport headlines scream “Pope Funds Caravan” or “Border Battle: Pope Funds Caravan.” The Vatican wires half a million dollars from Peter’s Pence to aid the illegal immigrant caravan marching towards the southern border of the United States.

Attention Catholics!
Pencil in June 30, 2019 on your church calendar. It signifies this year’s collection day for Peter’s Pence, the global collection plate for the Pope’s favorite charities. According to the USCCB website, the purpose of Peter's Pence Collection is to provide the Holy Father with the financial means to respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster, and disease.

Surely, the persecuted Christians in Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria desperately deserve $500,000 to help them rebuild their devastated churches, schools, homes, and lives at the brutal hands of Islamic jihadists, do they not? After all, these innocent Catholics weren’t breaking the law when the violent jihadis terrorized their land, destroyed their Churches and raped their women.

What about the underground Catholic Church in China who are experiencing a massive destructive crackdown and demolition of their churches and lives by the Communist government? They could use $500,000 from Peter’s Pence to rebuild their places of worship.

Clearly, Catholics victims of the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka by Islamic terrorists would benefit greatly with $500,000 from Peter’s Pence, would they not?

Certainly, the funds from Peter’s Pence should be directed to the Catholic Church in the Middle East and Africa, after a genocidal year of unrelenting terrorism and Christian persecution by Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorists?

No, Francis is focusing on the Soros agenda, not the persecuted Catholics’ agenda. Recall that this is the Pope who said, “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.”

Francis shares the Soros view that “national borders are the obstacle.” The Pope incessantly interjects his view into American politics, by commenting about Trump’s wall as “those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up” or intruding into the political campaign that politicians who promote a wall are “un-Christian.”

The man who sits safely and securely behind his 39-foot-high Vatican wall undermines American security by funding open borders.

By pouring monies into illegal migrant caravans, Pope Francis is facilitating the soaring crime rates of human trafficking, illegal drugs, criminal organizations, and exploitation of women and children, along with the organized participation and funding of George Soros and the United Nations. Central American immigrants from the MS-13 gangs are flowing over our porous border and wreaking havoc in our communities.

It’s noteworthy that American Catholics are the largest contributors to Peter’s Pence. It is time to shut off the financial spigot to this Vatican scheme to undermine the safety, security and sovereignty of Europe and the United States. Closing wallets to the Vatican, sends a message that American Catholics want the border closed and secure. Like the Pope, Americans deserve a wall to keep us safe.

On the last Sunday in June, the second collection basket will be passed for Peter’s Pence. Close your wallet.

Remember, Peter’s Pence rejects the fence.


And about Bergoglio's decision to name a laywoman to head the Secretariat for the Economy to replace Cardinal Pell, in the current Roman Curial hierarchy - before Bergoglio's forthcoming revolutionary Apostolic Constitution - that position is supposed to be #3 after Secretary of State. Which was anomalous enough because it certainly indicated that the two positions of temporal power, State and the Economy, are considered superior to the dicasteries directly responsible for carrying out Christ's mandate - that of the Doctrine for the Faith, which is the content of the Church's mission, and that of the Evangelization of Peoples, which is the mission itself.

Of course, we have now been forewarned that the dicastery for Evangelization will be La Suprema under the new Bergoglio constitution, which seems to ignore that evangelization must have a firm, unchanging and global content because, of course, the new Constitution would presumably also provide that every diocesan bishop will have doctrinal autonomy, as Bergoglio forewarned us all in Evangelii gaudium. Which makes any such entity like the CDF completely superfluous. Which was also one of Bergoglio's intentions all along, as we gather from all his asides to visiting bishops ("ignore what the CDF says") and similar statements from his former one-man brain trust, Mons Tucho Fernandez.

As I remarked earlier, this is really Bergoglio's ultimate slap at Benedict XVI, because with his new Constitution, any bishop can simply choose to ignore Summorum Pontificum - or any other pre-Bergoglio papal teaching or decree, for that matter (so a slap, too, against all preceding popes, even the three he has canonized) - in the exercise of their doctrinal autonomy.

Anyway, with some former auditor of a global accounting firm KPMG as Prefect of the Economy, the Roman Curia will have, for the first time, a layperson with powers and prerogatives outranking all the cardinals and bishops of the Roman Curia other than the Secretary of State and the putative Prefect for Evangelization. Did Bergoglio and his advisers even think of this? Francesca Chaoqui, the former Bergoglio female pet, must be livid with envy.


On to another anti-Bergoglio riff: The problem with prophecies, even those that abound in the Bible, is that anyone can give it any interpretation. The two 'prophecies' referred to in this post by a guest on Giuseppe Nardi's blog are a good example. In hindsight, they may be said to refer in some way to the reigning pope today, but that's all speculation... Still, the post is worth reading, as the saints cited for making the statements they did are not 'questionable' saints.

Were we given prophetic warnings
about Pope Francis?
By David Martin

April 28, 2019

It is not generally known that St. Faustina, known for her role in establishing the devotion to Divine Mercy, penned an unusual entry into her diary on December 17, 1936. Entry 823 is as follows.

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"I have offered this day for priests. I have suffered more today than ever before, both interiorly and exteriorly. I did not know it was possible to suffer so much in one day. I tried to make a Holy Hour, in the course of which my spirit had a taste of the bitterness of the Garden of Gethsemane. I am fighting alone, supported by His arm, against all the difficulties that face me like unassailable walls. But I trust in the power of His name and I fear nothing."

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Note that Faustina that day was making reparation for priests, an offering that brought upon her the worst suffering she had ever endured. But too, on that bitter day of December 17, 1936, was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would later reign as Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

Could it be that Faustina that day was atoning for the many priests, bishops, and cardinals of the future who would be misled by Francis? But could it also be that her mysterious torment signaled the arrival of a future anti-pope who would destroy the Faith in the name of “mercy?”

While complacent Catholics entertain the false security that popes can never err or inflict harm on the Church, the fact remains that the papacy under Francis has become a debacle of errors that have inflicted [are inflicting and will continue to inflict] great harm on the Church. Aside from his having abetted anti-life forces, betrayed the underground Church in China, sacked loyal priests, empowered homosexuals, rewarded abortionists, praised Luther, blessed adultery, and denied the miracle of the loaves, Francis more than once has professed heresy.

For instance, on February 4, 2019, he signed a joint statement with the head of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque, which states that "diversity of religions" is "willed by God," thus contravening the Church’s infallible teaching that God wills only the Roman Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

This coincides with his ongoing efforts to dissuade Catholics from their attempts to convert other religions. For instance, he asked Moroccan Catholics on April 2 not to seek Catholic converts to the Faith, arguing that the Church's mission does not consist in baptizing and converting people but in generating "change."

Herein he denies the Church’s commission from Christ to bring the knowledge of God to the world and "teach all nations" (Matt. 28:19), that all peoples might leave their particular idols and creeds and be converted to the Catholic Church. Under the guise of brotherhood and mercy he withholds the mercy of God from mankind.

Before his death in 1226, St. Francis of Assisi called together the friars of his Order and detailed this prophecy of what was to come in the latter days concerning a future pope. The following is taken from Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, R. Washbourne Publishing House, 1882, pp. 248-250, with imprimatur by His Excellency William Bernard, Bishop of Birmingham. The source of this prophecy is the Writings of St. Francis (1623) by Fr. Luke Wadding, preeminent historian and scholar on St. Francis of Assisi.

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"At the time of this tribulation, a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error.... Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true pastor, but a destroyer."

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[About this prophecy, one might point out that for all intents and purposes, de jure and de facto, Jorge Bergoglio is considered to have been canonically elected Pope on March 13, 2013. An act of God - whatever form it takes - would be necessary to invalidate that in the history books.

However, a Church historian can probably unearth when it was - if it ever was so - in the history of the Church, that sanctity of life was ever "held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it". Bergoglio certainly does profess it outwardly when he has to, but can we say he holds the idea in derision? True, he may have a relativistic view of the sanctity of life - one might think he believes 'Islamic lives matter' but that Christian lives are expendable if their persecution and death mean martyrdom. It's hard to tell with someone as incoherent as he is over what he believes.]

Finally, timid and 'prudent' persons like me can unmuzzle ourselves and say the word HERESY baldly, without hedging, no if's or but's, to apply to Jorge Bergoglio's most intemperate assaults on Catholic doctrine...


Prominent clergy, scholars accuse
Pope Francis of heresy in open letter
by Maike Hickson


April 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Prominent clergymen and scholars including Fr. Aidan Nichols, one of the best-known theologians in the English-speaking world, have issued an open letter accusing Pope Francis of committing heresy.

They ask the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to "take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation" of a pope committing this crime.

[Aye, there's the same old stumbling block! What steps, exactly, can they take, assuming some of them respond positively? As I understand it from the text of the open letter, the bishops are asked to openly rebuke the reigning pope for statements he has made that they consider heretical. If only a handful so far in the past six years have dared to express any open criticism at all of Jorge Bergoglio for lesser misdeeds, will God now miraculously open the hearts and minds of other bishops who observe the daily erosion of the Catholic faith at the hands of this man, so that they will finally speak out to at least voice their objections - or reservations, if they prefer to be prudent - about the reigning pope's most outrageous affronts to the faith??? They could even play devil's advocate and reflect on why such-and-such a statement or action is not and should not be considered heretical.

Anything to have their input, instead of being just sitting ducks and dumb pawns in Jorge Bergoglio's hubristic and narcissistic power game. For this is all about power - his power to proclaim to all and sundry, by virtue of his 'absolute' supremacy and prerogatives as elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church, to build his own church on the abject and forcibly bowed back of the institutional Church of Christ as its purportedly better model. If this isn't the most arrogant and totalitarian exercise of clericalism at its worst!]

The authors base their charge of heresy on the manifold manifestations of Pope Francis' embrace of positions contrary to the faith, and his dubious support of prelates who in their lives have shown themselves to have a clear disrespect for the Church's faith and morals.

"We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis's words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church," the authors state. The open letter is available in Dutch, Italian, German, French, and Spanish.

Among the signatories are well-respected scholars such as Father Thomas Crean, Fr. John Hunwicke, Professor John Rist, Dr. Anna Silvas, Professor Claudio Pierantoni, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, and Dr. John Lamont. The text is dated "Easter Week" and appears on the traditional Feast Day of St. Catherine of Siena, a saint who counseled and admonished several popes in her time.

The 20-page document is a follow-up to the 2017 Filial Correction of Pope Francis that was signed originally by 62 scholars and which stated that the Pope has “effectively upheld 7 heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused these heretical opinions to spread in the Catholic Church,” especially in light of his 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

The authors of the open letter state in a summary of their letter that it has now become clear that Pope Francis is aware of his own positions contrary to the faith and that the time has come to go a "stage further" by claiming that Pope Francis is "guilty of the crime of heresy.”

"We limit ourselves to accusing him of heresy on occasions where he has publicly denied truths of the faith, and then consistently acted in a way that demonstrates that he disbelieves these truths that he has publicly denied," the authors state.

They clarify that they are not claiming Pope Francis has "denied truths of the faith in pronouncements that satisfy the conditions for an infallible papal teaching."

"We assert that this would be impossible, since it would be incompatible with the guidance given to the Church by the Holy Spirit," they state.

In light of this situation, the authors call upon the bishops of the Church to take action since a "heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil.”

For this reason, the authors “respectfully request the bishops of the Church to investigate the accusations contained in the letter, so that if they judge them to be well founded they may free the Church from her present distress, in accordance with the hallowed adage, Salus animarum prima lex (‘the salvation of souls is the highest law’). The bishops can do this, the writers suggest, “by admonishing Pope Francis to reject these heresies, and if he should persistently refuse, by declaring that he has freely deprived himself of the papacy.”

The authors first present in detail – and with theological references to substantiate their claims – the different positions against the fait hthat Pope Francis has shown himself to hold, propagate, or support, including “seven propositions contradicting divinely revealed truth.”

One of the heresies the authors accuse Pope Francis of committing is expressed in the following proposition: “A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action.”

Many of these heretical statements touch on questions of marriage and the family and are to be found in Amoris Laetitia, but there is also a new claim made by Pope Francis in 2019 – namely, that the “diversity of religions” is “willed by God” – that is listed in the open letter.

In one section of the open letter, the authors list the many prelates as well as lay people, who, despite openly dissenting from Catholic doctrine and morals — either by word or by deed — have been by Pope Francis either publicly praised (such as Emma Bonino) or raised to influential positions (such as Cardinal Oscar Rodrigez Maradiaga). [Er, where is Theodore McCarrick in all this?] On this list are names such as Cardinal Blase Cupich, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, and Bishop Juan Barros.

The fact that Pope Francis never responded to the DUBIA (questions) concerning Amoris Laetitia published by Cardinals Carlo Caffarra, Joachim Meisner, Walter Brandmüller, and Raymond Burke is mentioned.

Moreover, the authors point out that Pope Francis has changed the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life to such an extent that orthodox Catholic experts have been replaced by heterodox experts, such as Father Maurizio Chiodi.

Addressing the bishops of the world – among whom are to be found all the present 222 cardinals – the authors of the open letter express their gratitude toward those bishops who have defended Catholic doctrine by their own personal witnesses.

“We recognise with gratitude that some among you have reaffirmed the truths contrary to the heresies which we have listed, or else have warned of serious dangers threatening the Church in this pontificate,” they state. Here, the DUBIA cardinals, but also Cardinal Willem Eijk, are mentioned. The authors also thank Cardinal Gerhard Müller for his Manifesto of Faith.

The authors believe, however, that at this time in history, six years into the Francis pontificate, more is needed, namely a more direct and authoritative approach. They recognize their own limits when they tell the bishops:

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“Despite the evidence that we have put forward in this letter, we recognise that it does not belong to us to declare the pope guilty of the delict of heresy in a way that would have canonical consequences for Catholics.

"We therefore appeal to you as our spiritual fathers, vicars of Christ within your own jurisdictions and not vicars of the Roman pontiff, publicly to admonish Pope Francis to abjure the heresies that he has professed.

"Even prescinding from the question of his personal adherence to these heretical beliefs, the Pope's behaviour in regard to the seven propositions contradicting divinely revealed truth, mentioned at the beginning of this Letter, justifies the accusation of the delict of heresy.

"It is beyond a doubt that he promotes and spreads heretical views on these points. Promoting and spreading heresy provides sufficient grounds in itself for an accusation of the delict of heresy. There is, therefore, superabundant reason for the bishops to take the accusation of heresy seriously and to try to remedy the situation.

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The authors make it clear that it is up to the bishops to take action and that they do not need a majority among the bishops to do so.

"Since Pope Francis has manifested heresy by his actions as well as by his words, any abjuration must involve repudiating and reversing these actions, including his nomination of bishops and cardinals who have supported these heresies by their words or actions. Such an admonition is a duty of fraternal charity to the Pope, as well as a duty to the Church," they state.

"If – which God forbid! – Pope Francis does not bear the fruit of true repentance in response to these admonitions, we request that you carry out your duty of office to declare that he has committed the canonical delict of heresy and that he must suffer the canonical consequences of this crime,” they add.

[Of the world's 5,000-plus bishops and cardinals, how many will it take to make such a declaration? And what would be those 'canonical consequences' if, say, more than one bishop or cardinal did this? Clearly we are in uncharted waters because, at least in modern times, has there ever been a precedent for the laity urging the bishops of the world to act against a reigning pope for committing heresy? Or even for a pope to be so publicly accused of heresy?]

Thus, the authors state, “these actions do not need to be taken by all the bishops of the Catholic Church, or even by a majority of them. A substantial and representative part of the faithful bishops of the Church would have the power to take these actions.”

[So, what exactly would constitute 'a substantial and representative part of the faithful bishops', especially if at this point, one might say that other than a handful of bishops who have openly stuck out their heads to profess their orthodoxy against the heterodoxies and heresies of the reigning pope and his 'faithful' followers. How many bishops are there today who are faithful to the Church of Christ and his Gospel, rather than to the man now unworthily holding the title of Vicar of Christ on earth? Say there are a dozen of them - would that number represent 'a substantial and representative part of the faithful bishops of the Church'? Seeing as there are no others right now until they choose to speak up and be counted?

Despite all these questions and my underlying skepticism about the effectiveness of this petition, I promptly and gladly signed this petition and its various outreach modalities because I believe with all my heart that Jorge Bergoglio represents a greater menace to the faith than Martin Luther ever was because he wields the supreme powers of the papacy an is therefore able to do all his evil work from within and from atop 'the Church. He is without a doubt the most frightening monstrosity nonpareil that has emerged from the abundant spawn of Satan generated and deposited by Vatican II.

Even if he had not said or committed any heresies, the mere fact that, from the beginning, he has revelled in confusing and confounding the faithful - even in simple things like the inseparability of mercy and justice, of mercy and truth - rather than confirming them in their faith, is already evil in itself, and doubly so because it violates his principal duty as pope.]

- The full 20-page document may be read here
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5983408-Open-Letter-to-the-Bishops-of-the-Catholic.html
- A select bibliography to support the case made in the open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church about Pope Francis’s heresies may be read here.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5983077-select-bibliography-for-open-letter-to-bishop.html
A petition launched by the organizers of the open letter to support their initiative can be found here.
https://www.change.org/p/the-college-of-bishops-of-the-catholic-church-appeal-to-the-bishops-to-investigate-pope-francis-for-heresy-bcce228e-da31-42d5-96cb-d10d398cc6bc

***

Summary of Open Letter to Bishops
By the Authors

The Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church is the third stage in a process that began in the summer of 2016. At that time, an ad hoc group of Catholic clergy and scholars wrote a private letter to all the cardinals and Eastern Catholic patriarchs, pointing out heresies and other serious errors that appeared to be contained in or favoured by Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia.

The following year, after Pope Francis had continued by word, deed, and omission to propagate many of these same heresies, a ‘Filial Correction’ was addressed to the pope by many of the same people, as well as by other clergy and scholars.

This second letter was made public in September 2017, and a petition in support of it was signed by some 14,000 people. The authors of that letter stated however that they did not seek to judge whether Pope Francis was aware that he was causing heresy to spread.

The present Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church goes a stage further in claiming that Pope Francis is guilty of the crime of heresy. This crime is committed when a Catholic knowingly and persistently denies something which he knows that the Church teaches to be revealed by God.

Taken together, the words and actions of Pope Francis amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, on the moral law, and on grace and the forgiveness of sins.

The Open letter also indicates the link between this rejection of Catholic teaching and the favour shown by Pope Francis to bishops and other clergy who have either been guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, or who have protected clergy guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as the late Cardinal Godfried Danneels.

This protection and promotion of clerics who reject Catholic teaching on marriage, sexual activity, and on the moral law in general, even when these clerics personally violate the moral and civil law in horrendous ways, is consistent enough to be considered a policy on the part of Pope Francis.
- At the least it is evidence of disbelief in the truth of Catholic teaching on these subjects.
- It also indicates a strategy to impose rejection of these teachings on the Church, by naming to influential posts individuals whose personal lives are based on violation of these truths.

The authors consider that a heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil. It strikes at the basic good of the Church and must be corrected. For this reason, the study concludes by describing the traditional theological and legal principles that apply to the present situation.

The authors respectfully request the bishops of the Church to investigate the accusations contained in the letter, so that if they judge them to be well founded, they may free the Church from her present distress, in accordance with the hallowed adage, Salus animarum prima lex (‘the salvation of souls is the highest law’).
- They can do this by admonishing Pope Francis to reject these heresies, and if he should persistently refuse, by declaring that he has freely deprived himself of the papacy.

While this Open letter is an unusual, even historic, document, the Church’s own laws say that “Christ's faithful have the right, and, indeed, sometimes the duty, according to their knowledge, competence, and dignity, to manifest to the sacred pastors their judgment about those things which pertain to the good of the Church” (Code of Canon Law, canon 212.3).

While Catholics hold that a pope speaks infallibly in certain strictly defined conditions, the Church does not say that he cannot fall into heresy outside these conditions.

The signatories to the Open Letter include not only specialists in theology and philosophy, but also academics and scholars from other fields. This fits well with the central claim of the Open Letter, that Pope Francis’s rejection of revealed truths is evident to any well-instructed Catholic who is willing to examine the evidence.

The signatures of Fr Aidan Nichols OP and of Professor John Rist will be noted. Fr Nichols is one of the best-known theologians in the English-speaking world, and the author of many books on a wide range of theological topics, including the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger.

Professor Rist, who is known for his work in classical philosophy and the history of theology, has held chairs and professorships at the University of Toronto, the Augustinianum in Rome, the Catholic University of America, the University of Aberdeen, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Open Letter is released just after the celebration of Holy Week and Easter Week, in the hopes that the present ‘passion’ of the Church will soon give way to a full resurrection of God’s saving truth.

Clergy and academics who wish to sign the open letter may send their name and credentials to organizers at this email address: openlettertobishops@gmail.com. All requests will be thoroughly vetted.

List of initial signers:
Georges Buscemi, President of Campagne Québec-Vie, member of the John-Paul II Academy for Human Life and Family
Robert Cassidy, STL
Fr Thomas Crean, OP
Matteo d’Amico, Professor of History and Philosophy, Senior High School of Ancona
Deacon Nick Donnelly, MA
Maria Guarini STB, Pontificia Università Seraphicum, Rome; editor of the website Chiesa e postconcilio
Prof. Robert Hickson, PhD, Retired Professor of Literature and of Strategic-Cultural Studies
Fr John Hunwicke, former Senior Research Fellow, Pusey House, Oxford
Peter Kwasniewski, PhD
John Lamont, DPhil (Oxon.)
Brian M. McCall, Orpha and Maurice Merrill Professor in Law; Editor-in-Chief of Catholic Family News
Fr Cor Mennen, JCL, diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands), canon of the cathedral Chapter, lecturer at the Diocesan Seminary of ‘s-Hertogenbosch
Stéphane Mercier, STB, PhD, Former Lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain
Fr Aidan Nichols, OP
Paolo Pasqualucci, Professor of Philosophy (retired), University of Perugia
Dr. Claudio Pierantoni, Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Chile; former Professor of Church History and Patrology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Professor John Rist
Dr. Anna Silvas, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education, University of New England, Australia
Prof. dr. W.J. Witteman, physicist, emeritus professor, University of Twente

THE ACCUSATIONS
In the following list, I have omitted the supporting citation provided...

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CWe accuse Pope Francis of having, through his words and actions, publicly and pertinaciously demonstrated his belief in the Following propositions that contradict divinely revealed truth (for each proposition we provide a selection of Scriptural and magisterial teachings that condemn them as contrary to divine revelation; these references are conclusive but are not intended to be exhaustive.)

I. A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law, as though any of the commandments of God are impossible for the justified; or as meaning that God’s grace, when it produces justification in an individual, does not invariably and of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin, or is not sufficient for conversion from all serious sin...

II. A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action...

III. A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience...

IV. Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts Between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each Other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right, or requested or even commanded by God...

V. It is false that the only sexual acts that are good of their kind and morally licit are acts between husband and wife..

VI. Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object...

VII. God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian...

These heresies are interconnected. The basis of Catholic sexual morality consists in the claim that sexual activity exists for the sake of procreation within marriage and is morally wrong if Knowingly engaged in outside of this sphere. The claim that forms Part of (IV) above, that persons who are civilly divorced from their spouse can licitly engage in sexual activity with another who is not their spouse, repudiates this basis. Consequently, to assert (IV) is to permit the legitimation of many kinds of sexual
activity outside of marriage, not just sexual intercourse between the civilly married.

Pope Francis has protected and promoted homosexually active clerics and clerical apologists for homosexual activity. This indicates that he believes that homosexual activity is not gravely sinful. These beliefs fall under the broader claim made in (V), to the effect that not all sexual acts between persons who are not
married are morally wrong.

The claim that a Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, and not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action, depends on Pope Francis's endorsement of Luther’s claim that justification does not demand observance of the divine law.

Taken together, all these positions amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, Catholic teaching on the nature of the moral law, and Catholic teaching on grace and justification.

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The list of accusations is followed by a section entitled
Evidence for Pope Francis's being guilty of the delict of heresy

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This evidence is twofold: Pope Francis’s public statements, and his public actions (the
statements quoted below from Amoris laetitia should not be read as isolated utterances, but in their true meaning in the context of the whole of chapter VIII of that document.)

These two forms of evidence are related. His public actions serve to establish that the public statements listed below were meant by
him to be understood in a heretical sense.
The actions are listed under three headings:

(A) Pope Francis's public statements contradicting truths of the faith (12 listed)
(B) Pope Francis’s public actions that indicate a rejection of truths of the faith (The charge sheet here includes a comprehensive list of prelates and priests that Bergoglio has privileged or favored in some way despite their known and repeated violations of Gd's commandment on chastity, or against killing (in the case of Italy's Emma Bonino who has publicly boasted she personally performed more than 10,000 abortions)

(C) Pope Francis's pertinacity in adhering to heretical propositions (citing his documented familiarity with Veritatis splendor and Familaris consortio, whose major principles he repudiated in Amoris laetitia)

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The Open Letter concludes with these paragraphs:

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Given the open, comprehensive and devastating nature of the heresy of Pope Francis, willingness publicly to admonish Pope Francis for heresy appears now to be a necessary condition for being a faithful bishop of the Catholic Church.

This course of action is supported and required by canon law and the tradition of the Church. We provide below a brief account of the canonical and theological basis for it.

We ask the Holy Trinity to enlighten Pope Francis to reject every heresy opposed to sound doctrine, and we pray that the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of the Church, may gain for your Lordships the light and strength to defend the faith of Christ.

Permit us to say with all boldness that in acting thus, you will not have to face that reproach of the Lord: 'You have not gone up to face the enemy, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle in the day of the Lord' (Ezekiel 13:5).

We humbly request your blessing, and assure you of our prayers for your ministry and for the Church.

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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/05/2019 03:49]

ever since the 16th century and the Council of Trent has so much been written on what can be done about a heretical pope, but since in those days, the question was really hypothetical - and deemed unlikely
after the examples of Liberius, Honorius and John XXII - it was a question that engaged only theologians and canonists in the highest circles. Jorge Bergoglio and his variety of outrageous anti-Catholic and
un-Catholic words and actions, however, have prompted an ongoing debate in the media, conventional and online, among canonists and theologians, lay and clerical alike, on the same question. The authors of
the latest Open Letter regarding Bergoglio's heresies so far, offer an appendix that summarizes the various positions on this issue. I reproduce it here without needing to comment.

Canon law and Catholic theology
concerning the situation of a heretical pope
By the Authors of the Open Letter

The situation of a pope falling into heresy has long been a subject of discussion by Catholic theologians. This situation was brought into prominence after the ecumenical Third Council of Constantinople anathematized the Monothelite heresy in 681, and posthumously anathematized Pope Honorius for his support of this heresy; this condemnation of Honorius as a heretic was repeated by Pope St. Leo II when he ratified the acts of that Council.

Since that time, Catholic theologians and canonists have reached a consensus on several essential points concerning the implications of a pope falling into public heresy. We will briefly present these points here.

It is agreed that no pope can uphold heresy when teaching in a way that satisfies the conditions for an infallible magisterial statement. This restriction does not mean that a pope cannot be guilty of heresy, since popes can and do make many public statements that are not infallible; many popes indeed never issue an infallible definition.

It is agreed that the Church does not have jurisdiction over the pope, and hence that the Church cannot remove a pope from office by an exercise of superior authority, even for the crime of heresy.

It is agreed that the evil of a heretical pope is so great that it should not be tolerated for the sake of some allegedly greater good.

Suarez expresses this consensus as follows: 'It would be extremely harmful to the Church to have such a pastor and not be able to defend herself from such a grave danger; furthermore it would go against the dignity of the Church to oblige her to remain subject to a heretic Pontiff without being able to expel him from herself; for such as are the prince and the priest, so the people are accustomed to be.'

St Robert Bellarmine states: 'Wretched would be the Church’s condition if she were forced to take as her pastor one who manifestly conducts himself as a wolf' (Controversies, 3rd controversy, Bk. 2, cap. 30).

It is agreed that ecclesiastical authorities have a responsibility to act to remedy the evil of a heretical pope.
- Most theologians hold that the bishops of the Church are the authorities that have an absolute duty to act in concert to remedy this evil.

It is agreed that a pope who is guilty of heresy and remains obstinate in his heretical views cannot continue as pope.

Theologians and canonists discuss this question as part of the subject of the loss of papal office. The causes of the loss of papal office that they list always include death, resignation, and heresy. This consensus corresponds to the position of untutored common sense, which
says that in order to be pope one must be a Catholic.

This position is based on patristic tradition and on fundamental theological principles concerning ecclesiastical office, heresy, and membership of the Church.
- The Fathers of the Church denied that a heretic could possess ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any kind.
- Later doctors of the Church understood this teaching as referring to public heresy that is subject to ecclesiastical sanctions, and held that it was based on divine law rather than ecclesiastical positive law.
- They asserted that a heretic of this kind could not exercise jurisdiction because their heresy separated them from the Church, and no-one expelled from the Church could exercise authority in it.

The canon law of the Church supports this theological consensus. The first canon to give explicit consideration to the possibility of papal heresy is found in the Decretum of Gratian. Distinctio XL, canon 6 of the Decretum states that the pope can be judged by no-one, unless he is found to have deviated from the faith:
Cunctos ipse iudicaturus a nemine est iudicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide devius (‘he, the one who is to judge all, is to be judged by none, unless he be found straying from the faith.’)

The wording of this statement seems to have been influenced by Cardinal Humbert's De sancta Romana ecclesia (1053), which stated that the pope is immune from judgment by anyone except in questions of faith: ‘a nemine est iudicandus nisi forte deprehendatur a fide devius.’

The claim made in the canon is a development of Pope Gregory the Great’s statement that evil prelates must be tolerated by their subjects if this can be done while saving the faith (Moralia XXV c. 16: ‘Subditi praelatosetiam malos tolerant, si salva fide possint …’).

The canonical assertion that the pope can be judged for heresy came into being as an explication of the canonical principle that the pope is judged by no-one. The statement in this canon is an enunciation of a privilege; its object is to assert that the pope has the widest possible exemption from judgement by others.

This canon was included, along with the rest of the Decretum of Gratian, in the Corpus iuris canonici, which formed the basis of canon law in the Latin Church until 1917. Its authority is supported by papal authority itself, since the canon law of the Church is upheld by papal authority.

It was taught by Pope Innocent III, who asserted in his sermon on the consecration of the Supreme Pontiff that "God was his sole judge for other sins, and that he could be judged by the Church only for sins committed against the faith" [“In tantum enim fides mihi necessaria est, ut cum de caeteris peccatis solum Deum iudicium habeam, propter solum peccatum quod in fide committitur possem ab Ecclesia judicari.”]

Rejection of the canon in the Decretum would undermine the canonical foundation for papal primacy itself, since this canon forms part of the legal basis for the principle that the Pope is judged by no-one.

The canon was universally accepted by the Church after the compilation and publication of the Decretum. The heresy referred to in this canon is understood by virtually all authors to mean externally manifested heresy (the thesis that a pope loses his office for purely internal heresy was advanced by Juan de Torquemada O.P., but it has been conclusively refuted and has been rejected by all canonists and theologians ever since.)

Neither the 1917 Code of Canon Law nor the 1983 Code of Canon Law abrogate the principle that a heretical pope loses the papal office. This is agreed by all commentators on these codes, who state that this principle is correct.

The early canonical tradition generally requires that in the specific case of papal heresy, the pope must be admonished several times before being treated as a heretic. The Summa of Rufinus, the Summa antiquitate et tempore (after 1170), and the Summa of Johannes Faventius (after 1171) all assert that the pope must be warned a second and third time to desist from heresy before he can be judged to be a heretic.

The Summa of Huguccio states that before the pope can be judged a heretic, he must be admonished to abandon heresy and must contumaciously defend his error in response to such admonition.

Sedevacantist authors have argued that a pope automatically loses the papal office as the result of public heresy, with no intervention by the Church being required or permissible. This opinion is not compatible with Catholic tradition and theology, and is to be rejected.

Its acceptance would throw the Church into chaos in the event of a pope embracing heresy, as many theologians have observed. It would leave each individual Catholic to decide whether and when the pope could be said to be a heretic and to have lost his office.

It should instead be accepted that the pope cannot fall from office without action by the bishops of the Church. Such action must include adjuring the pope more than once to reject any heresies that he has embraced, and declaring to the faithful that he has become guilty of heresy if he refuses to renounce these heresies.

The incompatibility between heresy and membership in the Church is what leads to the loss of the papal office by a heretical pope. The Church's determining that a pope is a heretic [In this case, who constitute or represent 'the Church' which makes the determination, and how do they make that determination?] and the announcement of his heresy by the bishops of the Church, is what makes the pope's heresy a juridical fact, a fact from which his loss of office ensues.

There are some lesser differences of opinion between Catholic theologians concerning the measures that the Church must take in dealing with a heretical pope.
- The school of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas asserts that in order for the papal office to be lost, the Church, after ascertaining and
pronouncing that the pope is a heretic, must also command the faithful to avoid him for his heresy.
- The school of St. Robert Bellarmine does not reject the step of commanding the faithful to avoid the pope as a heretic, but it does not consider it a necessary precondition for the pope's losing office for heresy.

Both these schools have adherents, up to and including the present day. We do not take a position on these disputed questions, whose resolution is a matter for the bishops of the Church.

More practical questions:
- Is there perhaps a 'formula' the authors could suggest for a bishop who agrees substantially with their conclusions about Jorge Bergoglio's heretical words and actions, whereby he might announce that, as a bishop and a successor to the Apostles, and under Canon 212.3, he finds the reigning pope heretical on one or more points, and that therefore he is admonishing the pope publicly to abjure the heresies that he has professed?
- Assuming there are bishops and cardinals who might be willing to stick their heads out this way, they would have to repeat their public admonition at least two more times - and have the pope ignore them all (as he has ignored the DUBIA and Mons. Vigano's Testimonies). How much time should they wait between admonitions until having to repeat it, and how much time after the last presumably unanswered admonition will they declare him guilty of heresy?
- If this were the way to go with what one must call 'fraternal correction', why have Cardinals Burke and Brandmueller, the two surviving DUBIA cardinals, not gone ahead with this move? Or Bishop Schneider, for that matter? Or Bishop Gracida, instead of his obstinate campaign to declare Bergoglio invalidly elected?
- Will Cardinals Mueller and Van Eijk - since they have already spoken out against this pope- take the lead this time?
- Will Cardinal Sarah - who would have been the obvious great hope for the next pope - be willing to give up his position in the Roman Curia in order to freely speak his mind and join the putative 'band of brothers' willing to make a public fraternal correction of the pope?
- Assuming the most optimistic of scenarios and we had at least a dozen cardinals and bishops fraternally correcting Bergoglio three times - and being ignored - will they all then get together to declare that, having given him three chances to abjure his heresies (or at least, to defend them if he could and if he dared), they now must declare him guilty of heresy?
- AND THEN WHAT? What force will their declaration have if 95% of the world's bishops and cardinals profess their loyalty to Bergoglio and the latter excommunicates the 'faithful bishops' as schismatics? [Actually, no! He will use the situation to say to the world, 'Christ-like, "Father forgive them for they know what they do!", while dishing out his choicest insults for them from his Casa Santa Marta pulpit.]
- Where does such a situation leave the world's 1.2 billion Catholics? More firmly than ever under Bergoglio's totalitarian control in a church built on the quicksands of his whims and caprices and the world's fickleness???

In any case, the following item seems apropos:

‘Competing visions’ of how to be Catholic
by Raymond Kowalski

April 29, 2019

We heard recently from two disparate Catholic authors who surprisingly agree about the current condition of the Catholic Church.

One of the authors is Ross Douthat, self-described conservative Catholic and author of To Change the Church (subtitled “Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism”), a recent book that explores “what exactly constitutes the Catholic core.”

The other author is James Martin, S.J., author of Building a Bridge (subtitled “How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity”), a recent book that questions a core Catholic teaching.

Mr. Douthat was writing from his regular perch on the op-ed page of the New York Times. His column, dated April 15, 2019, was headed “From the Ashes of Notre Dame” and sub-headed “How a burning cathedral rebukes a divided Catholic Church.” He confesses that the column was originally going to be about the recent reflections of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on the causes of the sex abuse crisis, which were met with “fierce criticism from Francis partisans.”

Then the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral happened. Not one to pass up a good metaphor, Mr. Douthat describes the two camps as “competing factions convinced that they are the firefighters inside Notre-Dame, and their rivals are the fire.”

The point of Mr. Douthat’s column is that the Catholic Church today is “a church in pieces,” a Church that “mirrors the polarization of Western culture, rather than offering an integrated alternative.” He says the Church of today is “torn between competing visions of how to be Catholic.” He likens the Church to “a museum whose docents all seem to hate one another.” [Which I don't think is a particularly appropriate metaphor. stay with the bipolar image - you can't go wrong with that. It's not as if all the 'docents' are against one another - they are simply lined up, with differing degrees of hostility, on opposite sides of the aisle, as it were.]

Father Martin was writing from his pulpit on Twitter on April 24, 2019. (I do not follow Father Martin, but someone I do follow retweeted him.) The tweet said, “One Catholic’s experience with a traditionalist group in a local parish: ‘Worse, as this shadow church grows, the unity implied in the very word ‘Catholic’ is jeopardized.’”

This tweet about “one Catholic’s experience” in that Catholic’s parish seemingly had nothing to do with Pope Emeritus Benedict’s reflections on the root causes of clerical sex abuse, which Benedict placed, at least in part, on “homosexual cliques” in seminaries, which “significantly changed the climate in the seminaries.”

Nor did this tweet have anything to do with the Notre Dame fire. (In fact, it appears that the parishioner’s unpleasant experience with a traditionalist group in his parish happened in 2017.) Nonetheless, Father Martin saw some use in bringing it up at this time. Perhaps it is just the “hit dog, will holler” proverb in action. Or perhaps it was a dog whistle to summon the pack.

In any case, both authors see the church as divided into two camps: between Francis partisans and Benedict partisans; between progressives and traditionalists; between the universal Church and the “shadow church.” Please, let us not debate where the dividing line really falls and which popes stand where. The point is that there is a line — somewhere — and people know in which camp they reside. [There it is.]

Mr. Douthat and Fr. Martin both make the same point. As Mr. Douthat put it, the docents in the museum all seem to hate one another. Why should that be the case? Are we all not Catholics and members of the church that He founded? No one wants to say it, because doing so inevitably leads to the S-word, but it now seems inescapable that the answer is “no.”

The “competing visions of how to be Catholic” are now so different, so opposed, that they cannot be said to be complementary visions of the same faith.
- If one is right, the other cannot also be right.
- If the faithful in one camp are sure that theirs is the path to Heaven, those in the other camp assuredly must be on the path to…someplace else, if it exists.
The most bitter disputes arise when both sides of an argument are convinced they are right.

Ironically, there is one point of agreement between the two factions — namely, that there are two factions, only one of which can be right. Recall that Der Spiegel, in 2016, reported that Pope Francis told some friends, “It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.” It has come to pass, whether or not anyone will say it.

Which faction will win out? Father Martin thinks his faction has already won, but he is clearly worried about the growing “shadow church,” the members of which Father Martin’s friends find so annoying. ]['Shadow church'? Excuse me! Already consigning the anti-Bergoglio Catholics to the catacombs???]

Mr. Douthat, on the other hand, thinks it will take a thousand years for the answer. As he puts it: "What lies beyond the stalemates and scandal and anger of our strange two-pope era? Go ask the Catholics of 3019 A.D. It’s for them to know, and us, if God wills it, to find out.